Red Blow

Saucyman – Two-part question with a follow up: What is the deal with Red Bull and cocaine, how is it any different from Coca-Cola? Why is everyone freaking out? – Tony Montana.

Last week, routine testing in Hong Kong revealed Red Bull Cola, Red Bull Energy Drink and Red Bull Sugar-Free contained trace amounts of cocaine. Following the discovery, an array, often confusing to my geographically challenged self, of SE Asian Archipelago-Nation-States - Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore along with Hong Kong and the terra firma Vietnam pulled all Red Bull products from shelves in stores and destroyed the energy drink like a Dixie Chick CD in a Wal-Mart parking lot on the eve of the Iraqi War.

The problem with the Red Bull, seems to have originated with a batch of the drink manufactured in Austria this April. The company claimed the problem was the coca used in the drink was not properly ‘decocainized’ – yes a word, a word Coca-Cola used to describe for making coca leaf suitable for their product.

Red Bull really shouldn’t be thought of as a product per se, it is a brand. Not only because Red Bull spends 30% of their revenue on marketing – The culturally ubiquitous Coca-Cola budgets 9% of their earnings for marketing. Well that and the fact Red Bull, which is manufactured at different locations around the globe and sold in 100+ countries, changes its formula to meet local laws and regulations. France did not approve the sale of Red Bull until last year, while unhappily ceding to European Union regulations. France’s health minister vowed to keep the drink under surveillance – oops, she just blew her cover. After her detective work possibly, maybe, if there is time she will look into the possible health risks of smoking. Denmark, Norway and surprisingly, Uruguay still prohibit the sale of the energy drink – if Red Bull is able to get those countries on board it could easily add hundreds to its annual tally of 3 billion cans per year.

Whatever minor changes are tweaked to meet local fiats, Red Bull is essentially a liquid combination of B vitamins, sugar (or artificial sweetener), caffeine – surprisingly the levels are similar to what is found in a cup of coffee or double the level in a soft drink and 1000 mg of an amino acid called taurine. Taurine, which sounds like the bullish Taurus, is often falsely claimed to be derived from bull’s blood/urine/semen - depending on what your source heard at a party once in college. And depending on whether you take a faith-based or scientific approach to dietary supplements, taurine may be responsible for everything from regulating blood pressure to controlling weight gain to restoring energy. For a more grounded response, taurine, which appears naturally in mammals might not give you wings, but it does appear to be important for muscle and skeletal maintenance.

In any case, coca does not appear to be a major component in the purported restorative powers of Red Bull, especially at the levels it was detected - .1-.3 micrograms (1/1,000,000) per liter. Each Red Bull can is 250 mg (about 8 oz) and a typical dose of cocaine is 20-30 mg, so to get high, roughly 4,000 cans of Red Bull would be needed.

Since your question was asked in two-parts with a follow-up, that is how it will be answered. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look Coca-Cola’s origins as a patent medicine and follow up with Coca in diets before returning to a simple question about BBQing in time for the weekend.