Liberate energy drinks again

On March 12th, at around 6:30 AM, I visited my local Żabka (a Polish convenience store chain) to buy an energy drink, as I usually do.

I went to the shelf with energy drinks and picked out an energy drink named "Tiger". It's a well known brand, so I didn't suspect anything bad. Then, I headed to the checkout to pay. In Poland, it’s illegal to sell drinks containing more than 14 mg of caffeine per 100 ml to anyone under 18, so the cashier is supposed to ask for ID while selling these. However, this time she didn’t. I assumed it was because I shop there regularly, and she recognized me. I paid 4.99 PLN for a 500 ml can.

I put the can in my jacket pocket and walked to the bus stop. Along the way, I sat on a bench to pour the drink into my metal bottle, which makes it easier to open and close repeatedly. That’s when I noticed something odd: there was no warning about high caffeine content. I also didn’t see anything stating that it was a low-caffeine version, unless I had simply overlooked it.

Since the drink had a decent cactus flavor, I didn’t think much of it at first. But out of curiosity, I decided to check online what exactly I had bought. It turned out to be Tiger UFO. I was surprised to see that the can looked slightly different from some of the images I found.

Energy drinks without energy - the SCANDAL

That’s when I discovered that this was a low-caffeine version, containing only 14 mg of caffeine per 100 ml. For comparison, most energy drinks contain about 30 mg per 100 ml (a 250 ml can of Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine, so 32 mg per 100 ml) The drink I bought had only 70 mg in a half-litre can — far too little to have any real effect. I immediately knew that this wouldn’t keep me awake, but since I had already spent 5 zloty, I wasn’t going to pour it out on the ground.

Why does this even exist?

This product exists due to an amendment to the Public Health Act, passed on July 13, 2023. Since January 1, 2024, restrictions have been placed on the sale of energy drinks containing more than 150 mg of caffeine per liter or taurine, unless the substances occur naturally.

These drinks cannot be sold:

• to people under 18,
• at schools,
• in vending machines.

I don’t particularly care about the first restriction, but the second means that energy drinks are now banned from school stores, and the third means that I can’t buy my favorite drink quickly and conveniently from a vending machine. If I want to buy one at a self-checkout, I now have to wait for a store employee to check my ID and approve the purchase—which is a waste of time and an unnecessary annoyance.

The absurd

This shitty and useless restriction only affects drinks with added caffeine, so "coffee drinks" are not affected. Some people would say that children don't like the taste of coffee, so they won't buy them.

I have to disappoint you. These drinks don't taste like coffe, because they have like 2% of coffee in them. The rest is milk and sugar. And they still have 20-40 mg of caffeine per 100 ml. What's even funnier, they actually have more sugar than standard energy drinks, and you can always buy sugar-free drinks. Some are even 0 kcal. One of my favourite energy drinks, Monster Ultra White has 0 grams of sugar.

What should we do about it?

Overthrow the government. For legal reasons, this is a joke.