Cocaine, "Speed in a Can," Pulled from Stores

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter last month to Redux Beverages LLC of Las Vegas, NV, the makers of an energy drink they had named Cocaine. The letter warned that Redux was illegally marketing the drink as a dietary supplement and an alternative to street drugs. The FDA gave the company until May 4 to respond to the complaint.

Part of the FDA’s complaint said that the product label and website about the drink include statements such as "Liquid Cocaine," "Speed in a Can," and "Cocaine—Instant Rush." However, Redux says that the drink, which has been sold in a dozen states for the past nine months, does not contain any drugs and is marketed only as an energy drink.

According to Clegg Ivey, one of the partners in Redux, said Monday that the company plans to continue selling the drink, but under a new name for now. Ivey said the company was not ordered to stop marketing the drink, but Redux officials were concerned about possible legal problems because of the FDA warning, so they decided to change the name. For the time being they will give it a new name in order to get the product back on store shelves within a few weeks, but they aren’t giving up on calling it Cocaine.

"Of course, we intended for Cocaine energy drink to be a legal alternative the same way that celibacy is an alternative to premarital sex," Ivey said. "It's not the same thing and no one thinks it is. Our product doesn't have any cocaine in it. No one thinks that it does. We think it is most likely legal in the United States to ship our product."

Attorneys general in three states have recently announced that Redux had agreed to stop marketing Cocaine in those states. "Our goal is to literally flush Cocaine down the drain across the nation," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "Our main complaint about Cocaine is its name and marketing strategy seeking to glorify illegal drug use and exploit the allure of marketing ‘Speed in a Can,’ as it called the product."

The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection removed 300 cases of Cocaine from stores across the state on April 23, saying that the company had not licensed the product legally. Fans of the drink responded violently to the censorship of Cocaine by leaving scores of messages, many filled with profanity, on a MySpace page created for the drink.

Redux wants to keep the name Cocaine for their energy drink because, Ivey said, the name fits with the entire company’s tongue-in-cheek approach to product development and marketing. "We like to think we have a great sense of humor," he said. "And our market, primarily folks from ages 20 to 30, they love the ideas, they love the name, they love the whole campaign. These are not drug users."

Ivey says that the company plans to continue to fight to keep the name "because it’s clearly the name that’s the problem."