"Best $2k I Ever Spent!" The Legend And Politics Of Four Loko

by Alex Gilman · January 12, 2011

Upon seeing the atomic bomb in action, Albert Einstein is reported to have said:

"it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

I wonder what Albert Einstein would have said about Four Loko.

Although I don't know the actual story of the invention of Four Loko, I can imagine it went something like this: John Loko, a well respected neighborhood methamphetamine dealer, was having a crisis of conscience. He loved cooking and selling meth, which made all the neighborhood kids happy. But then they would get really thirsty, too.

"I'm a respected speed dealer," he would tell the fellow vagrants at their evening cocktail parties in the abandoned building in K-town. "But I would have never gone into this business if I knew that so many people would get so dehydrated. If only there was a way to combine the amped-up twitchiness of this speed with the drooling-yet-hydrated incoherence of massive amounts of beer..."

And in that shining moment, Four Loko was born.

"But John," his friends protested, "how is this different from Red Bull and vodka? Will it really have that 'stay up for three days and brush your teeth for four hours straight' level of cracked-out madness that we've grown accustomed to?"

And then they tried it:

[Go HERE and HERE for entire galleries of cray cray party photos of these kids!]

What's the point of all of this? To let you know that Four Loko was founded upon American ingenuity, know-how and innovation, traits that we supposedly encourage and praise in this country. And yet, spineless politicians who wouldn't dare to try to change something that's actually dangerous to most Americans (like, say, gun laws) are falling all over themselves to ban a caffeinated booze drink and put hardworking Americans out of business. I call bullshit.