Energy Drinks: The Nanny-State on Steroids

I've written before about the pointless panic over energy drinks, and the complete lack of context in this conversation (eg, the fact that coffee has far more caffeine than most energy drinks).

Well, just when I thought the debate over energy drinks couldn't get any more ridiculous, we learn that the federal Health Minister is considering this:

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq won’t say whether she’s ready to accept the advice of her own expert panel on energy drinks to classify the caffeinated beverages as drugs and sell them at pharmacies, saying she first needs to be assured the science is right and the report is balanced.
(...)
The panel’s report, provided to Health Canada last November and obtained by Postmedia News last week, says such energy drinks as Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster should be renamed “stimulant drug containing drinks’’ and be sold only under the direct supervision of a pharmacist instead of on grocery store shelves.

So it would then fall to a pharmacist to sell a can of Red Bull (80mg of caffeine), but a Starbucks barista will still be the one to sell you a coffee (upwards of 300mg of caffeine), the young employee at Tim Horton's can still pour you an iced coffee (up to 150mg of caffeine), and the grocery store can still stock all the soft drinks it wants (some 500ml bottles of soda contain as much or more caffeine than a can of Red Bull).

Insanity.