Time to sober up and let the truth be trolled!

I get a little tired of attempts to manufacture hysteria, and the latest example is a campaign against mixing caffeine and alcohol being ramped up by doctors:

Mixing alcohol and caffeine is hardly a new concept, but a rash of cases involving students and others who landed at hospitals after drinking beverages that combine the two in a single large can has alarmed college and health officials around the country.
The drinks are dangerous, doctors say, because the caffeine masks the effects of the alcohol, keeping consumers from realizing just how intoxicated they are.
A brand called Four Loko — a fruit-flavored malt beverage that has an alcohol content of 12 percent and as much caffeine as a cup of coffee — has come under particular scrutiny after students who drank it this fall at Ramapo College in New Jersey and Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash., ended up in emergency rooms, some with high levels of alcohol poisoning.
“This is one of the most dangerous new alcohol concoctions I have ever seen,” said Dr. Michael Reihart, an emergency room doctor at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pa., who said he had treated more than a dozen teenagers and adults over the last three months who had been brought there after drinking Four Loko. “It’s a recipe for disaster because your body’s natural defense is to get sleepy and not want to drink, but in this case you’re tricking the body with the caffeine.”

It may be one of the most dangerous new alcohol concoctions Dr. Reihart has ever seen, but the deadly combination of ingredients is not new at all.
As the Times says, “Mixing alcohol and caffeine is hardly a new concept.”
They are right, and our culture has been asleep at the wheel as this dire threat has metastasized.
Does anyone remember Rum and Coke? Cuba Libre? Why there was even an Andrews Sisters song (obviously targeting naive young soldiers in World War II who didn’t realize the danger they faced) deliberately encouraging and tempting them to try this risky form of speedball.
Videos exist showing them actually singing it in the 1940s, and while fortunately the children of today are protected by our copyright laws, apparently someone has discovered a loophole which makes it legal to shoot video of a Victrola playing the insidious song that helped pave the way for this cultural plague:

And if you think that’s bad, the diabolical Irish invented an even more deadly combination — deceptively named Irish coffee.
I was shocked to learn that the recipes are all over the Internet, there is a Wiki page devoted to the deadly concoction, and there are even videos like the following — in which a young girl (barely above college age) demonstrates how to manufacture what really ought to be called dangerous combination drug.

We need legislation now! Write your congressman demanding something be done about the deadly plague, lest we go the way of Ireland — and fall like Rome!
Not only should the videos be banned, but bars should be absolutely prohibited from combining these ingredients. No place which serves alcohol should be allowed to serve coffee, tea, or coke to any customer who has consumed alcohol!
Except now that I think about it, banning videos and prohibiting the deadly combination in bars might not be enough. After all, almost all of the grocery stores which sell alcohol also sell coffee, tea, coke and they are also allowed to sell caffeine pills like the notorious NoDoz. Which means that we need to make the stores to stop facilitating this combination, if not by banning the sale of the precursor ingredients entirely, at least by prohibiting any customer who purchases alcohol from simultaneously purchasing caffeine products. That’s the least we can do.
I realize that a few libertarian nutjob cranks might complain that it’s inconvenient, but hey, we already make people sign and show ID when they buy Sudafed, don’t we? If we can save the life of one child, no sacrifice is too great. The burden on law-abiding citizens is minimal, and countless children’s lives will be saved!
And at the very least, where are the warning labels we need on the caffeine products? I just looked at my coffee can, and it says absolutely nothing about the dire dangers of combining it with alcohol. Where’s the FDA when you need them? Has MADD been asleep at the wheel too?
This is a shocking situation, and something must be done.
Our children and the future of our civilization are at stake!
Unfortunately (perhaps it’s because of the election), this issue is not getting the attention in the blogosphere that it should. I found the link to the Times piece at Memeorandum, and the only blogger to link it did so only in order to mock the New York Times for “concern trolling about college students and alcohol.”
Concern? Considering the long-term, ongoing nature of this threat to civilization, the Times’ puny attempt at “concern trolling” is barely a drop in the bucket.
It’s time to sober up and face the big picture. We are looking at a specter of gigantic lakes of coffee mixed with oceans of distilled damnation!