Pure caffeine powder, often purchased to facilitate weight loss, can be purchased by anyone through many online retailers such as Amazon or eBay, as well as many stores that carry health and weight loss supplements.
It is also rather cheap, thus the appeal for teenagers. However, it is dangerous and not recommended. It is a supplement that is not regulated by the FDA. One teaspoon of this substance is equivalent to MG of caffeine, which is a lethal amount that can cause serious permanent damage to the body and brain if ingested in a single dose and can result in death.
Snorting one teaspoon of caffeine powder is comparable to chugging 20 cans of soda or 30 cups of coffee in one sitting. It has been reported that teenagers are purchasing caffeine powder and snorting it in a style similar to that of snorting lines of cocaine.
What makes this situation even scarier is that the teens are mixing this powder with alcohol and other drugs. The list of drinks and other products containing caffeine continues to grow. Another newer caffeinated product is Sheets dissolvable strips — which the manufacturer says contains 50 mg of the stimulant per sheet. To date, nutrition facts panels don't have to reveal the amount of caffeine in a product because it is not a nutrient as required by the FDA.
Caffeine powders bring a whole new category of risk, because even tiny amounts of powdered pure caffeine can be lethal. Furthermore, safe quantities of these products can be nearly impossible to measure with common kitchen measuring tools. Volume measures, such as teaspoons, are not precise enough to calculate how many milligrams of caffeine are in the dose," the FDA noted.
To measure a safe dose, you must use a micro scale. But that really depends on the person. Effects of caffeine depend on your gender, age, and health condition. Women should limit caffeine to mg a day during their reproductive years, say researchers at the Bureau of Chemical Safety, in Ottawa, Canada.
And caffeine should not even be in childhood and adolescent diets, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report. Overdose from caffeine powder caused tachycardia, seizure, and ventricular fibrillation in a year-old woman, as reported in British Medical Journal Case Reports in The patient was a woman who had overdosed on drugs before and suffered from depression.
She survived with serious heart and lung complications after hospital workers filtered her blood and restarted her heart repeatedly with CPR. Evidence that caffeine can be extremely toxic comes from other rare case reports, as well. At only 31, a man intentionally took his life by overdosing on caffeine, reported Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology in April While caffeine may not be suspected at the time of heart-related deaths and is rarely measured, at least in these cases, the concentrations were fatal.
Holstege says that he has seen cases of caffeine toxicity in his own practice as recently as this year. In an extreme case he reported in , a woman ate about 50 gm of caffeine in a massive overdose suicide attempt, taking tablets of mg each.
This white powder looks similar to cocaine and amphetamines. It is marketed to appear safe, however, it is dangerous and can be deadly in small amounts. A teaspoon of pure caffeine powder contains between 3, mg of caffeine. A standard cup of coffee has about 95 mg of caffeine, so this pure caffeine powder has as much caffeine as cups of coffee. Two spoonfuls of caffeine powder have been known to kill several people globally and lead to even more being hospitalized due to caffeine overdose.
Caffeine powders were readily available on Amazon Prime two or three years ago, but now the only available caffeine supplements appear to max out at mg of caffeine per dose. Retailers have been cautioned not to sell products that exceed FDA guidelines.
Another form of caffeine powder was available as Coco Loko and was essentially a chocolate powder snuff. Both products offered candy-flavored substances administered the same way as the illicit drug it appeared to be modeled after. Because pure caffeine powder used to be easily purchased online, it has grown in popularity.
Snorting one line of this powder can be about equal to ingesting cups of coffee. However, because it varies between products, it can be hard to tell how much caffeine is in each dose. In addition, people report that it enhances the effects of other drugs, like alcohol or marijuana.
People reported that it also seemed to make the effects last longer as well. Additionally, snorting caffeine can add another layer of negative effects, including:. If you or someone you know has been snorting caffeine and is experiencing any of the following symptoms, seek medical advice and emergency services immediately:. Caffeine abuse and addiction can be treated in the same manner as any other addictive stimulant drug. Attending an addiction treatment program can help you understand the nature of addiction and how substance abuse can impair your life.
If you or someone you care about has been snorting caffeine and is worried about addiction, give us a call. We can help you identify a program that can explore any potential underlying mental health issues as well as a quality addiction treatment program.
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