Germany Bans Red Bull Cola
May 27th, 2009 by Rick
The Health Institute in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, conducted a sample test of Red Bull Cola and discovered a minute amount of a byproduct of cocaine, per liter in the drink. Fearing violations of their narcotics law, five other German states (Hesse, Thuringia and Rhineland-Palatinate) banned the drink from being sold in stores.
On Monday, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Germany’s equivalent to the FDA, but more scientific), said that that level of cocaine within the drink was too low to pose any sort of health risk and planned to release a more detailed report sometime today.
Red Bull said it’s cola was…
harmless and marketable in both the U.S. and Europe.
It doesn’t make sense why the ban went into effect. It would take 12,000 liters of the drink to become affected. Even negative publicity is still publicity and with all the media outlets covering the story, Red Bull Cola (which has only been available for a year) may certainly benefit from the buzz.
