Would this include gin?
My first experiences with alcohol were with whiskey sours, martinis, and beer - all of which I liked despite a notable lack of “sweet, candy” flavors. In fact, I despise sweet alcohol and always have. Even before I was 21 (and I pre-date the “must be 21 to drink” rule) I enjoyed the “burn” and never found the taste unpleasant. I would think that people who found alcoholic “burn” and taste unpleasant just wouldn’t drink much, if at all. Some seem to like it from the get-go, or else acquire the taste for it awful darn fast.
It’s not like you can stop kids from spiking orange juice or Kool-Aid anyhow.
In short, I don’t think it’s sweet, candy-like flavors that attract kids to alcohol. I don’t think it’s what keeps them drinking alcohol. I don’t think it’s what makes alcoholics. Banning such things will do exactly nothing to combat problem drinking.
I remember this same discussion happening when I was in high school - 16 or 17 years ago.
I don’t think the number of teenage drunks has gone up (or down) since then…or that they typically drink the sweet drinks.
Jager, cheap to mid-range beer, or cheap to mid-range vodka/rum/whiskey/etc are what I always saw…and while the last might be mixed with something sweet, it was generally mixed pretty strong (this is the prime ‘drink to get drunk’ age, after all), so the sweet drinks, being weak, wouldn’t be a popular choice.
No. My first hangover–and it was the kind where the hangover speaks to you and says, “I AM DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF PEOPLES”–came from vodka that I mixed with fruit punch. I’m sure the Young Alcoholics of America would figure out the recipe if pre-mixed were banned.
You will get my Brutal Fruit when you pry it from my …well, probably my limp, totally intoxicated hands, probably. Berrylicious FTW.
Heh. I’m tired of thinking of the goddamn children all the time. If I wanted to think about children, I’d have children. 
I assume it is. I found those bans a little bizarre myself, although I understand the reasoning. And I suppose it’s harder to make your own sweetened cigarette than it is to sweeten your own alcohol.
And, pray tell me, what are us over-college-aged men supposed to use to get college-aged women drunk?
Roofies?
Expensive wine.
Any kind of adulterated wine, too. Because it’s nasty and low-class, not because of anything kids might do.
And we DEFINITELY need to ban sweet kosher wines. Pfoo!
We need a Reinheitzgebot for wine. An updated one for beer might be good, too.
Amen. If you want a fruit-flavored vodka, the only acceptable way to get there is to dump a bunch of vodka and a bunch of fruit in a large jug, and wait. Now that can be good stuff.
How? The explanation behind the flavored cigarette ban is that children may want to try them. Using that “reasoning” anything not made for children would also have to be banned including regular cigarettes, automobiles, R-NC-X rated movies, and yes, flavored alcoholic beverages.
I haven’t smoked cigarettes in almost 20 years. But to think that as an adult in an alleged “free” country I can’t buy flavored cigarettes because some kid might also want to try them is asinine.
In one line you state you’re tired of thinking of the goddamn children all the time. In the next you say you understand the reasoning behind such ludicrous affronts to our liberties. How?
Sure, if you can show a company intentionally produces and markets its product to children. Otherwise, a blanket ban is incredibly overbroad and antithetical to a free society.
Why don’t we ban Twinkies? They are sweet and get children hooked on something that can give them Type II diabetes. The sweetness masks the taste of things like sorbic acid (yuk!) and whey (pretty gross!) and polysorbate 60 (
).
No, then the manner in which the product is marketed is changed. It’s a moot point anyway as minors cannot legally obtain such products anyway. Car companys routinely run commercials showing kids sitting comfortably and having a great time in a mini van. I don’t hear of any efforts to ban those because some kid might want to jump behind the wheel and go for a spin.
But back to the OP. If the ban on fruit flavored cigarettes is reasonable to protect children, why wouldn’t a ban on fruit flavored liquor be just as reasonable? I can see no difference.
You are correct. I was thinking about it from a criminal conspiracy angle, which has nothing to do with banning because of a certain flavor.
Someone needs to market this immediately.
Ferraris.
I can understand the reasoning (“the cigarettes are sweet and appeal to children”) without supporting it. I think it’s stupid. Even stranger from my perspective are bans on products like low-tar cigarettes, which - even if they were marketed deceptively - were supposed to be less awful than the alternative. It’s like the government saying ‘if you’re going to smoke, we want you to smoke the most carcinogenic thing out there.’ I can’t imagine that did a lot of good.
That’s a bit of a loaded OP, isn’t it? You could equally say that these drinks should be encouraged because they can also be used to educate people how to drink responsibly.