By: Caleb Jones

Last year, teenagers and young adults spent almost $2.3 billion on heavily caffeinated "energy" drinks with names like Monster, Red Bull, Amp and Full Throttle.   It seems like anywhere you go on the Windsor High campus you'll see at least one half-asleep pupil with an energy in his/her hand. I'm not saying I don't drink energy drinks; they get me through an 8 hour shift at work. The real question is do us teens know how much caffeine are in these drinks? Also, what effect do these have on our health, if any?

Bruce Goldberger a toxicology professor at the University of Florida tested 10 energy drinks to determine the level of caffeine in each drink. He found a significant range of caffeination.   He found one of the energy drinks, Hair of the Dog, contained no caffeine. Another drink, a 16-ounce serving of SoBe No Fear, contained 141 milligrams of caffeine, which is the equivalent of almost five cans of Coke or 1 ½ cups of a typical brewed coffee. Goldberger also tested an 8-ounce sugar-free can of Red Bull, which had twice the caffeine of a can of Coke or Pepsi.

Although research indicates the amount of caffeine in these products isn't alarming, what is alarming is the fact that teens often don't realize how easily one can become addicted or dependent upon these drinks. "If they use it for three or five days in a row, and then suddenly quit, then they're going to be thrown into withdrawal," says Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Withdrawal symptoms can range anywhere from Headaches to mood swings to even a bad case of the jitters. "I think it's important that people recognize that caffeine really is a drug," Griffiths says, "and that they accord it respect as a drug."

The energy drink market is an ever expanding industry; ten years ago only about 8-10 brands existed; now over 100 brands of energy drinks are on the shelves. It seems as if the demographic for energy drinks is based solely around teens and young adults, this being evident by there ever so present ads and sponsorships of extreme sports and MySpace.