Four Loko: A very bad idea...

After so long of review processing forms for DUI offenses it is always surprising when a drink is mentioned that I've never heard of. Obviously, this leads to further investigation. How is there a drink I don't know about? I must learn more!

This was the case the other day with the drink Four Loko. For those like myself just learning about this drink, Four Loko is a 24 ounce energy drink containing 12% alcohol.

Yes, let me repeat that.

A 24 ounce serving of 12% alcohol.

To put that into perspective a regular beer is typically a 12 ounce can of 5% alcohol. Certainly those too can be served in 24 ounce cans, but they still only contain 5% alcohol. Using Widmark, for a woman my size, if I were to consume an entire Four Loko, my blood alcohol concentration would be 0.167. For one drink...

Now, obviously this is assuming no elimination, so in reality it wouldn't be that high. However, in order for a woman my size to drink one Four Loko and remain below the legal limit for driving, I would have to consume this drink over the span of SIX hours.

The drink comes in a variety of fruit flavors and although the website does have a very nice "drink responsibly" section, lets be honest: A 24 once carbonated beverage in a pop top implies one serving, whether that's what is on the label or not, we know that to be true. Someone buying a 24 ounce soda would not drink one serving and then leave the drink to lose it's carbonation for later consumption.

Additionally the drink contains caffeine and all the other typical ingredients in a standard energy drink.  Here's a nice description of drinking the beverage.It's essentially a Red Bull and Vodka on crack.


The drink is starting to get some press. However, in my opinion they are focusing on the wrong things. The press is the typical press that has continued since the start of Red Bull and vodka drinks, the combination of alcohol and caffeine.

The real danger of Four Loko is back to basics. It's a 24 ounce serving of 12 % alcohol!

Now just to make all of you out there do a Homer Simpson impression, here's the best news: The drink is sold for $2.50 at 7 Eleven. Pause a minute and think about that. A $2.50 bottle of wine, with stimulants served in a one serving size container. In Europe, it will even contain absinthe for you. Although we could debate the pharmacological activity of today's wormwood, this addition does seem to just give the drink a little something else.

My prediction is that we're going to be seeing this more in driving under the influence cases and more ominously, it will be incorporated into the college scene. This in itself is a scary thing. College, where funneling and keg stands are already tradition, you're going to add a beverage that will take an average size woman to more than double the legal limit in one sitting. Now change that to a 110 pound, naive drinking female and you get a blood alcohol concentration of a 0.233. When you consider that the average BAC level attributed to death by alcohol intoxication alone is a 0.250, this is reason to be concerned.

The drink is tailor-made for that crowd with the energy aspect, the low cost, high alcohol and fruit flavors. It is sure to become very popular. One can only hope that they will show better judgment than college students are known to display.

State Experts vs. Defense Expert: Us versus Them

The most heated seminar I have ever attended was one at an annual meeting of NEAFS. (The Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists for those not in the know) The seminar was titled "Debating the science in Forensic Science" and featured a panel of both state and defense experts as well as a few college instructors. This is clearly a recipe for high tempers!

One person on the panel was an academic...a very outspoken academic...who had not actually performed the work she was passing judgment on. As one can imagine, this was not well received by those in the audience. The effect of her speech (whether she intended it that way or not) was that crime lab staff were biased towards the state and that their work was not held to the same scientific level that research is held to. I would argue that neither of those statements are necessarily true.

Over the years of going to conferences I have found that there are two real constants in the forensic community. One is the passion involved in the work. No one enters forensics for the money! Every single one of them is passionate about what they do. The other constant is the duality of us versus them. "Us" being state, federal, or municipal employees and "them" being (dramatic music) defense experts.

The unfortunate fact is that there are defense experts who will simply testify to anything for the paycheck. Their science changes based on the case and what is convenient to say at the time. They lack credibility and no matter how credible the other side, there is a taint to having a "battle of the experts" with someone who will say anything for the right amount of money.

The role of an expert witness is simply to explain the science as objectively as possible in terms that a lay person would be familiar with. It's very simple. We don't need to make judgments on guilt, we don't need to argue legalities. All we have to say is the absolute truth to the best of our knowledge and explain it so that those without a science background they can still understand. Easy.

Now, have I felt a person was guilty during a case? Of course. I'm human. Did that change what I would testify about? Absolutely not. In fact when the scenario presented by the defense was supported by the math I made sure that the state's attorneys knew it. The attorneys get to argue their version of truth and the fact finder decides. An expert witness should never change their testimony based on whether they feel the person is guilty or not. As long as you always remember that, testifying is easy, and there's no need to worry about statements against your credibility.

There have certainly been cases of misconduct in crime labs, whether through ignorance or intent. These always make the news, and the panel at this particular seminar did discuss some recent instances that had been reported. The academic previously mentioned, extrapolated that to say all crime lab employees are biased towards the prosecution because of their associations with police officers or through overt pressure from superiors to alter a case. This resulted, as you can imagine, in a room filled with red faced people clenching their fists, while the vast majority of the rest of the room frantically raised hands to give their two cents.

I believe overt pressure is truly rare. It is the very rare case where personnel are told to alter results, and I believe that it is truly rare for a forensic scientist to falsify results. Those are the extreme and rare cases.

I do believe however that at times there is a covert pressure. Not to lie or falsify data or anything so dramatic, but in perhaps in not raising as many issues as we may have noticed. We spend the vast majority of our waking hours at our place of employment. People always want that place to be a comfortable place. When you raise issues or say unpopular things, that work place can become a very tense place. Unhappy attorneys tend to be vocal. (This indeed may be an understatement.) So whether we raise issues we know we should or not becomes a difficult question sometimes. I believe that is where most of pressure, if there is any at all arises.

Now as someone who has transitioned from an us to a them I find myself wanting to redefine the term "defense expert" in the forensic community. Being independent does not have to mean being unethical. In fact my credibility arises from the fact that I do have a strong ethical background. My role now is the same as it ever was as a state chemist, to translate the science into layman's terms, to do the math and let the attorneys argue what is "true."

The crime of the academic on the panel was taking a small number of cases where there had been misconduct by the laboratory personnel and applying a bias to all crime lab personnel. The vast majority of forensic scientist are however very honest and ethical in their work. This extrapolation from few to many is the same reason that "defense expert" is a dirty word in the forensic community.

Although we can not force others to behave ethically, we as scientist should always remember to hold ourselves to a high ethical standard. Arguing more passionately for the state does not counteract an unethical defense expert, but in fact adds a sense of bias to the fact finders that simply should not be there in either witness.

As for the panel at the conference, it had to be cut short...