Cheap, sweetly flavoured drinks could kill kids: Experts

WELLINGTON - Two bottles of cheap, sweetly flavoured drinks contain enough alcohol to kill kids, claim health experts.

At a conference in Manukau Liquor, licensing Inspectors Institute president Murray Clearwater held up two 1.25-litre bottles of a raspberry lemonade called Big Foot, which he bought at a price of “15 dollars for two”.

And he has warned parents to keep their children away from this drink, which is eight per cent alcohol - double that of a standard beer.

“That’s enough to kill someone, let alone a child,” nzherald news quoted him as saying.

“Twenty standard drinks [the two bottles combined] could create gross intoxication in an adult, let alone a young person, and puts them at greater risk of walking in front of a car or alcohol poisoning. A thousand people die a year directly related to alcohol,” he said.

He said such cheap, sweet drinks were clearly aimed at young people and should be banned.

“Mum and dad don’t understand that their kids can buy that sort of product at that sort of price. There needs to be a social impact statement where people manufacturing this type of product need to identify that it was designed for an adult market. This was not,” he added. (ANI)