School Tells Energy Drinks To Buzz Off

If anyone is in need of some extra energy on a hot spring day, it's the sprinters, midfielders and forwards at Westfield High School in Fairfax County, Va. But the one thing you won't find here, or on any other school field in the county, is an energy drink, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

No Red Bull, no Monster. They're all now banned for athletes.

"We've had a couple instances where athletes will have adverse reactions to the amount of caffeine or some ingredients," says the school's athletic trainer Roslyn Weise.

The county says several students, some in respiratory distress, had to be taken off the field by ambulance after consuming the energy drinks.

"A lot of them would get a terrible headache, and have difficulty concentrating, nausea, upset stomach," Weise explains.

Sophomore Carrisa Hobbs swore off the drinks at basketball camp after having about a dozen in one night.

"I actually couldn't go to sleep because my heart was beating really fast and I was kind of scared to go to sleep," Hobbs says, adding "and I couldn't really catch my breath."

But, after all, she did drink 12.

So what's the danger in drinking just one, Orr asks? There's probably no harm, the experts say, but Dr. Mark A. Kantor warns, "A lot of the ingredients in these drinks have not been adequately studied. We don't know the long-term effects, we don't know the potential interactions."

As for caffeine, some energy drinks don't have much more per ounce than coffee, but there are a lot of ounces in some of the cans. CBS News had some of the leading brands checked at an independent lab.

MILLIGRAMS OF CAFFEINE PER BOTTLE:

Sobe No Fear
182.8
Starbucks Double Shot
130.0
Red Bull
76.9
Hansen's Energy
70.2
Coca Cola
32.7

"I think one of the problems with energy drinks is that people aren't even aware how much caffeine is really in it," Kantor, who is based at the University of Maryland, says.

The American Beverage Association, which represents some of the energy drink makers, says it doesn't support "energy drinks in school vending machines at any grade level."

And in fact, many of the drinks warn right on the can that they're not for kids. But they don't buy that in Fairfax County.

"The manufacturers might claim they're not marketing to kids, but when the distributors say they want to come to our schools and distribute products for free, and pamphlets, it sounds to me they're marketing to kids," says Jon Almquist, who runs the athletic training program in the county.

But they'd be wasting their breath with these athletes, Orr says. The only thing they are drinking at practice is water.