Even a Teaspoon Full of Pure Caffeine Can Be Life Threatening
According to Logan Stiner's parents, he was about to graduate from his high school in just four days when one day he OD'd on caffeine and died. He was a high-school star wrestler and would have graduated fourth in his class. He wanted to study chemical engineering this year in fall. His parents were shocked to learn about caffeine and that such a thing even exists. They personally began lobbying the FDA to ban this fatal substance.
"We didn't know how much of it was circulating around, didn't know what it was, never heard of it, and we thought we were pretty in the know," his mother Kate Stiner told ABC News.
What's more shocking is that this deadly substance can be easily bought in its powdered form online. You can even buy it as a liquid or as an inhaler. Many even recommend it as a health supplement, without any warning about its fatality.
Advocates and lawmakers are already lobbying FDA to ban concentrated caffeine products as there is no safe way to consume this substance.
Wade Sweatt is another victim claimed by this highly concentrated powder. 24-year-old Sweatt died after going to coma within minutes of consuming the powder for the first time.
"It's like an explosive, a catastrophe waiting to happen," Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Tuesday.
Following these two deaths, FDA began warning people about the dangers of pure caffeine. The agency also issued letters to five companies last year and these companies since then have stopped selling bulk quantities of this product. However, there are still manufacturers who sell it online. Just a simple online search will reveal dozens of of sellers with nothing more than an inane warning "use sparingly" scribbled on the package.
