Energy drinks rattles school
MAYA BLACKMUN The Oregonian Staff
TIGARD -- Teachers and administrators at Twality Middle School have seen something in the trash bins that has them worried: increasing numbers of empty energy drink cans.Some teachers became so concerned, they e-mailed parents Friday pleading with them not to send their students to school with energy drinks. Administrators followed up with a letter Tuesday to all families in the 880-student school.
"The result is that some students are literally drunk on a caffeine buzz, or falling off a caffeine crash," the e-mail said. While many energy drinks have the same caffeine, ounce for ounce, as strong coffee, the teachers wrote they found some students exchanging and accumulating cans and drinking as many as five cans a day.
"Many energy drink consumers have already developed caffeine dependency, and on some days we get to witness 14-year-old caffeine withdrawal (You know how you get when you haven't had your cup of coffee)," the teachers wrote.
The rising popularity of so-called energy drinks is drawing concern among school administrators around the nation, with principals in other states also urging parents not to send their students to school with energy drinks. In mid-March, four eighth-graders in Broward County, Fla., were hospitalized after sipping energy drinks and then complaining of sweating and racing hearts.
QUESTION: How many energy drinks a day do you consume? Do you agree there is a problem with teens drinking too many?