Caffeine Kills

The Inquirer business section gets into the Navy Yard shooting today with an article about workplace shooting trends.

The Philadelphia metro area had 42 (!) such shooting in 1993, compared to only 15 last year. (The lowest total between those years was nine, in 2002.) A bunch of experts talk about ways to stop workplace shootings, etc., etc. Here’s the money line:

Workplace homicides rise and fall with demographics, the economy and the popularity of certain drugs. McGoey said there were spikes in workplace homicides in the early 1980s and the early 1990s. As for now, “we are definitely a more tightly woven society. We are so stoked on caffeine,” he said.

Yeah, that makes sense. The big drug in the early 1980s and 90s was killyourcoworkersajuana.

Violence on the job [Inquirer]

New Jersey High Schools To Test For Steroids, Soft Drinks

Yesterday, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced that they would be testing playoff teams for drugs starting next school year.

The state will be testing any team that qualifies for the tournaments or championships sponsored by the NJSIAA, but they’ll only be testing a random sample of 500 students. About 100 drugs will be tested for, including such athlete drug test stalwarts as steroids, diuretics and cocaine. And the banned substance list (.pdf) also contains a bunch of energy drink/pill ingredients as ephedrine and bitter orange.

And, well, there’s also the most popular drug in the world:

(a) Stimulants

amiphenazole
amphetamine
bemigride
benzphetamine
bromantan
caffine [sic] (guarana)
chlorphentermine
cocaine

Yes, that’s caffeine! (Uh, we think.) Fear not, soda junkies… well, you’re probably not qualifying for any state playoffs anyway, but even if you are, New Jersey’s test will only show up as positive if the concentration in urine exceeds 15 micrograms/ml. What the hell does that mean, you say?

I’m a little unsure, but this page, titled Caffeine and the Athlete, says that you’d need to drink approximately eight cups of coffee to exceed the level for the Olympics, which is 12 micrograms/ml, although some athletes have come close to exceeding the test level after ingesting 350 mg of caffeine, which is approximately three and a half cups of coffee. Still, that’s a lot.

Still, if you have the jitters the night before the big game, New Jersey athletes, don’t drink coffee or Coke! Stick to old fashioned marijuana, which is not on the banned substance list.

N.J. takes a bold step on steroids [Inquirer]
Banned Drug Classes [NJSIAA (.pdf)]
Caffeine and the athlete [Rice.edu]