Energy drinks should be regulated as drugs by the Food and Drug Administration.

I'm looking forward to an excellent debate. My main contentions are -- 1. Energy Drinks have detrimental effects to the body. 2. Energy Drinks behave like drugs. Definitions: Regulate = (According to U. S. Congress) to control the amount of something in an official manner. In this case, we will be discussing the regulation of the amount of caffeine in the energy drink. Energy Drink = Drink with extremely high amounts of caffeine, taurine, & other dangerous substances. 1. Energy Drinks have detrimental effects to the body. The consumption of energy drinks can have very dangerous & unhealthy side effects. A long-term effects of energy drink ingredients is addiction. Caffeine withdrawal is also an extremely common effect correlated with energy drinks. The problem is, the section that the energy drinks are currently put in is "dietary supplements", which is very misleading as consumers think it"s good for them. Regulation will fix this & bring attention to these harmful products! According to the American College of Medical Toxicology: 43% of people who use energy drinks report poor sleep & increased inattention throughout the following day, rather than the supposed "benefits". All these side effects can do very harmful things. Esp. for teenagers, poor sleep can result in bad growing habits. This will lead to bad study habits as well. Also, 67% of all teens take Energy Drinks to stay up late & study, but this can actually be very bad for their bodies. According to the U. S. National Library of Medicine: Energy drinks have no nutritional benefit. When teens consume energy drinks, they believe that it provides benefits due to its misleading categorization, while in reality no benefits really happen. Not only does it harm the consumer, these drinks aren"t even doing what they"re supposed to do! According to the Miami Herald: 4 athletes, who were all previously healthy, were sent to the hospital after consuming an energy drink before exercising. Let"s think about this for a moment. How would perfectly healthy bodies with fully mature systems get sent to a hospital after consuming energy drinks? What would happen to the children, whose systems aren"t even fully developed yet? This is what regulation will prevent! 2. Energy drinks behave like drugs. There is a worry that young people will experience the "gateway" effect: the concept that addiction to energy drinks could make it more likely for one to move on to riskier substances such as illegal drugs. This is why energy drinks are the new "gateway" drug. According to National Science Board: People that drank energy drinks are 2 times more likely to abuse alcohol, smoke marijuana, etc. compared to people who don't. Also, energy drinks cause consumers to become addicted, making it nearly impossible to stop drinking. When they try to stop, withdrawal and a variety of harmful symptoms, occur. According to the Fitness Magazine: Energy drink consumers are more likely to get withdrawal symptoms & pain than smokers or alcohol consumers. Withdrawal is the behavior of a drug. Thus, shouldn"t we regulate it as a drug? Also, coming back from addiction is extremely hard, like going up a waterfall once you already jumped down. When it gets to the point that the addiction causes a consumer"s body to not function properly with o taking it daily, something needs to be done. According to the FDA: Caffeine is a drug. It is clear that some of our bodies are not able to handle the combination of caffeine with other ingredients such as Taurine, Gurana and Ginseng in Energy drinks. Moreover, energy drink manufacturers are misleading the consumer by throwing in some vitamin additives to show that it is good for the consumer. This concludes my argument. I'm looking forward to my opponent's response.