Dear Class of 1989,
I just realized today that we are old. How do I know this? Next summer, when the Class of 2008 graduates from high school, it will mark the first graduating class that wasn't alive when we graduated in 1989.
Here's to winkles, hair growing in weird places, and getting older!!!
Cheers,
Gerard Stone
I'd like to meet the marketing genus who came up with the idea of creating "An energy drink called Cocaine." What, why didn't you call in crack?
The company that makes this ill-named product "pulled from stores nationwide amid concerns about its name." I so wish I could have been in the room when they decided to come up with this name. Unreal.
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- An energy drink called Cocaine has been pulled from stores nationwide amid concerns about its name, the company that produces it said Monday.
Clegg Ivey, a partner in Redux Beverages LLC of Las Vegas, Nevada, said the company plans to sell the drink under a new name for now.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter last month that said Redux was illegally marketing the drink as a street drug alternative and a dietary supplement. May 4 was the deadline for the company to respond.
The FDA cited as evidence the drink's labeling and Web site, which included the statements "Speed in a Can," "Liquid Cocaine" and "Cocaine -- Instant Rush." The company says Cocaine contains no drugs and is marketed as an energy drink. It has been sold since last August in at least a dozen states.
"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."
Ivey said the FDA did not order the company to stop marketing the drink, but officials were concerned about possible legal action. They will announce a new name within a week and hope to have the product back on store shelves within a few weeks.
"What we would like to do is continue to fight to keep the name because it's clearly the name that's the problem," Ivey said. "What we can't do is distribute our product when regulators in the states and the FDA are saying that if you do this, you could go to jail."
Attorneys general in Connecticut and Illinois recently announced that Redux had agreed to stop marketing Cocaine in those states, while a judge in Texas has halted distribution there.
"Our goal is to literally flush Cocaine down the drain across the nation," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced the company's agreement with his state Monday. "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 pulled 300 cases of Cocaine from state stores on April 23, saying Redux Beverages did not license the product as required by law.
As part of the agreement, Connecticut distributors and retailers can return unused product to Redux for a full refund.
A message seeking comment was left with an FDA spokeswoman.
Fans responded to the announcement that Redux would stop marketing Cocaine by leaving dozens of messages, many of them profanity-laced, on a page created for the product on the social networking site MySpace.com.
The energy drink is the first product marketed by Redux, which wants to keep the name Cocaine because it fits with the company's tongue-in-cheek approach, Ivey said.
"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."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/05/07/energy.drink.ap/index.html
It's been almost a month since I've been on here; about time I add something, so here I go:
Just when I begin to think that there is some decency in everyone, I came across this story where "a woman forced an 83-year-old housemate to smoke crack cocaine so she could steal personal information to get a credit card and run up more than $3,000 in charges."
I would like to know how this 41 year old crook was able to use "Shirley Hathaway's name, birth date and Social Security number to open the account." Think someone would know that most 83 year olds don't look 41?
No matter. Karma will get the best of her. By the way, don't you just get a kick out of stories, such as this, where they list the perps full name? Shouldn't that honor go to someone that did something good?
Thief made woman, 83, smoke crack, police say
NEW PORT RICHEY, Florida (AP) -- A woman forced an 83-year-old housemate to smoke crack cocaine so she could steal personal information to get a credit card and run up more than $3,000 in charges, authorities said.
Pasco County sheriff's investigators accused Theresa M. Stanley-Morgan, 41, of getting the older woman to smoke the drug at least twice to make it easier to exploit her financially.
Stanley-Morgan was arrested April 28. She admitted to investigators that she used Shirley Hathaway's name, birth date and Social Security number to open the account, a sheriff's report said.
Hathaway and a witness told investigators that Stanley-Morgan forced Hathaway to smoke a lit crack pipe, the report said.
Stanley-Morgan was in jail Monday on $23,000 bail, charged with criminal use of personal identification, use of another person's ID without permission and retail theft, according to jail records. Records did not indicate if she had a lawyer.
The sheriff's office said more charges were pending and asked the court not to reduce her bail.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/08/elderly.crack.ap/index.html
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