Town is first to spike sales of new drink

It comes in flavors that sound like lip gloss, in bottles that look like nail polish, and it tastes a bit like candy. And now the new mini-bottle malt beverage Spykes -- controversial on grounds it is marketed to teens -- is banned in West Bridgewater.

The community may be the first in the nation to prohibit sales of the sweet alcoholic drink. Anheuser-Busch, the manufacturer of Spykes, said this week it knows of no other community that has imposed a ban.

West Bridgewater selectmen voted this month to ban Spykes in bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. They are also urging area towns to enact similar bans, and they have contacted the state attorney general's office in hopes of banning the drink statewide.

Spykes is "a dangerous product that specifically targets underage drinkers," said West Bridgewater Selectman Matthew Albanese.

The product comes in four flavors -- Spicy Mango, Hot Melons, Spicy Lime, and Hot Chocolate -- and has 12 percent alcohol by volume, along with caffeine, ginseng, and guarana, ingredients common in energy drinks. It can be drunk as a shot or mixed with other drinks, including beer. As noted by the product's website, spykeme.com, "A Spykes pour takes beer up a notch by adding a caffeinated rush and a sweet taste that finishes hot."

The 2-ounce, caffeine-laced nips are stirring outrage among underage and drunken-driving prevention groups across the country, who say the product's taste, size, cost, and marketing are all distinctly targeted to teenagers. Many advocates are demanding that Anheuser-Busch recall the product.

Although the beverage is not currently sold in West Bridgewater, said Albanese, " we wanted to take a proactive approach before it became available." The move, he said, was in keeping with a town ban on the energy drink Cocaine, which has recently drawn scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration for its marketing efforts. He said parents have praised the ban as a "no-brainer," and liquor stores have not resisted.

St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, which controls nearly half the US beer market with Budweiser, Michelob, and other brands, defended the drink and dismissed criticism as fear-mongering.

Francine I. Katz, vice president of communications and consumer affairs for Anheuser-Busch, said Spykes is one of many malt beverages on the market and is far weaker than many hard-liquor drinks, containing the same amount of alcohol as one-third of a glass of wine. She said it is marketed to drinkers in their 20s who are increasingly choosing fruity alcoholic drinks.

"The way to prevent underage drinking is not by limiting product choices for adults," she said in a statement, calling for aggressive enforcement of the drinking-age limit.

Katz's statement said the company is perplexed over being singled out for criticism, given the multitude of other, much stronger alcoholic beverages that are packaged in small, eye-catching containers.

"Alcohol beverages in these size containers are nothing new ; they have been around since there have been first-class seats on airplanes, and there are more than 50 of these products in this category."

Those who are concerned about the ability of youths to conceal small containers should focus on hard-liquor beverages already on the market that have three to four times greater concentration of alcohol by volume than Spykes, she said.

The controversy surrounding the drink comes at a time of heavy concern about teenage drinking.

Last month, the US Surgeon General's Office issued a call to action against underage drinking, saying too many parents consider teenage drinking a rite of passage to adulthood.

Police officials in the suburbs are increasingly cracking down on underage parties in an attempt to deter binge drinking and driving. And as prom season approaches, school are adopting a range of measures aimed at keeping students away from alcohol.

David Rosenbloom, director of Join Together, a Boston University School of Public Health alcohol and drug prevention and treatment program, said Spykes is marketed to teenage girls who don't like the taste of beer.

"Like the tobacco industry, beer companies are carefully targeting products to attract new drinkers," said Rosenbloom, a public health professor.

"Spkyes is particularly pernicious because it's so easily hidden. It's a deliberate marketing scheme aimed at young women."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group, called for state attorneys general to investigate the drinks, which it denounced as "liquid lunchables."

George A. Hacker, director of the center's Alcohol Policies Project, said it is irresponsible to sell a product designed to "spike" the alcohol content of beer or cocktails, making it both stronger and easier to drink. The caffeine, he added, could give drinkers the false impression of relative sobriety, potentially making them more likely to drive.

Substance abuse advocates said the drink's size, which makes it easy to conceal and drink quickly, and surprising potency without the strong taste of hard liquor, combine to make it easier for students to get dangerously intoxicated. A "time bomb," is how Eldon Moreira, chairman of the West Bridgewater Board of Selectmen, described the drink.

According to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 43 percent of high school students have had a drink within the past month, and 25 percent have had five drinks in a row at least once. A survey of teenagers released last fall by Liberty Mutual and Students Against Destructive Decisions found that one in five teens drinks and drives.

Alejandro Rivera, director of Impact Quincy, a substance-abuse prevention program, said the beverage's sweet, familiar taste and jolt of caffeine help teenagers think the drink is somehow less illicit or dangerous, more of a flavored coffee than a beer or cocktail. "It's disguised," he said, "to seem innocent."

Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.