Consumption of caffeinated energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster, or Amp is a rapidly growing but understudied phenomenon. This study examined whether nonalcoholic energy drink use is associated with problem drinking and illicit drug use and, if so, whether that association is unique to energy drinks, net of the effect of other caffeine use.
Method:
Self-report survey data were collected from a nonprobability sample of 226 Western New York musicians (aged 18–45), including measures of energy drink use, problem drinking and other drug use, demographic characteristics, professional musician status, personality traits, musical performance and preference genres, and other caffeinated beverage use.
Results:
Frequency of energy drink use was positively associated with heavy episodic (“binge”) drinking, alcohol-related social problems, and prescription drug misuse.
Conclusions:
Energy drink use is linked to a constellation of moderately deviant problem substance-use behaviors, providing a useful marker for problem drinking or misuse of legal drugs but offering little if any predictive power with respect to illegal drugs. Associations between energy drink use and other substance use cannot be reduced to the effects of caffeine alone.
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