Family sued after Sarah Katz died last year after drinking Charged Lemonade, apparently unaware of soda’s high caffeine content
Family sued after Sarah Katz died last year after drinking Charged Lemonade, apparently unaware of soda’s high caffeine content
To their credit, the layperson should know that 390 mg of caffeine is a shitload of caffeine. Most people don’t, unfortunately. The problem here wasn’t that it wasn’t clear how much caffeine was in the drink, but rather it wasn’t clear that there was caffeine in the drink, and there’s so damn much caffeine in it.
A few weeks ago my flatmate mentioned the caffeine pills he’d been using, said he had one every couple hours that day. “It’s like as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.” 200 mg per pill. He’d had four pills that day. Not medically dangerous since he’s in good health, but it still kinda scares me how people don’t take caffeine doses seriously.
We should know more, but, we should also have controls in place so that people cannot screw themselves over to the extent where they may even die. Regulations are good things a lot of the time; allowing anyone to order or imbibe such an amount without warning is mad.
200mg is about as much as a cup of coffee if you drink your coffee in a big mug, like many people do. Obviously not a “standard” 8oz cup (but who drinks 8oz cups of coffee?) But 4 of those is too much, even if you’re the kind of person for whom it’s tolerable.