My name is Joel Hans, and I had some Drank.

Drank, you see, is a grape-flavored anti-energy drink, manufactured and marketed by the Innovative Beverage Group, Inc., as the “industry’s first ‘Relaxed Lifestyle Beverage.’” Neato, I thought. With all the stress in our daily lives, who wouldn't want to just chill out with 16 fluid ounces of sugar (54 grams worth!) and a mysterious concoction of valerian root extract, rose hips extract, and melatonin?

I was instructed to “slow [my] roll.” I could do that.

I try to be a relatively healthy consumer, so I read the can's labeling, suspiciously branded as “supplemental facts” instead of the typical “nutritional facts,” as though a can of Drank has some nutritional value, like the multi-vitamin I take in the morning. In its expanded view, so to speak, it appears that the ingredients are no more harmful than a typical can of Pepsi or Mt. Dew. There's even an array of B vitamins, which means it's got to be healthy, right?

The taste, oddly enough, isn't bad. It reminded me of a Red Bull, if they ever released a grape flavor (maybe they have—I don’t follow energy drinks). It's not something I'd imbibe on a regular basis, but this was no typical afternoon. Full disclosure: I drank Drank as a part of my job. I’d like to say that it came from all the way at the top. “Joel must consume the whole can of Drank, or we’ll get HR to start the paperwork.” But I think we both know that's not true. A colleague needed help on a project she was working on. And I’m a sucker, so down it went.

I thought of writing down my experience with Drank—not unlike those psychedelic journals written by purveyors of drugs more potent that either Drank or its codeine-laden cousin. Who knows what might happen, right? I could be taken away on a spiritual journey. I might see a part of myself, or the world, that I wouldn’t want to forget. But when you’re sipping down the legal-friendly, toned-down version of an illicit drug, who wants to be tied to a computer? Who wants to remember the key combination to insert the symbol for ∞ into Word? My roll was going to be so slowed that the very concept of writing, much less keyboards and computers, would turn into a small warm bundle of hope and begin to drift away from me to, well, ∞.

Damn.

A half-hour and half a can later, I thought it might be good to do some research. Wikipedia says something about “purple drank.” What’s that? A Houston hip-hop scene in the 90s? Codeine and Jolly Ranchers? Murder, overdoses? What the fuck had I done?

Reassurance was only a few more clicks away. Drank’s primary ingredient, melatonin, is a relatively harmless hormone that occurs naturally within the human brain. It emerges in darkness—forming its strongest ranks in the middle of the night—to induce the brain into its lull. I’m not a big fan of pumping myself full of mind-altering substances, but at least it’s not codeine, right? Strangely enough, some call melatonin the “hormone of darkness,” which throws off a whole series of connotations that I’d rather avoid when I’m trying to slow this roll of mine. Like any good internet-savvy hypochondriac, I remained skeptical that I would arrive on the other side of this experience alive, or at least mentally intact.

Speaking of which, my thoughts seemed out of sync with my movements. The task of moving my hands or feet was not necessarily more difficult, but felt as though every time I sent a spark down from my brain, a crossing guard somewhere in the brain stem halted all traffic to let a school of serotonin pass by. I’m not sure where they were headed, because the next few hours were to be completely deprived of their paradisiacal high.

The genuine purple drank consists of prescription-strength cough syrup (typically containing codeine) and some type of soda, like Mountain Dew. It can be consumed with or without Jolly Ranchers, it seems; perhaps this is similar to the difference between drinking absinthe straight from the bottle and through a specialized spoon. I’ve done the former, and I can’t necessarily condone such behavior, but I was young, and in Canada, and a little depressed at the time. Don’t blame me. But unlike absinth, purple drank is a seriously dangerous combination of depressants and mild stimulants. It’s a seriously dangerous way to drink a whole lot of codeine without that nasty cough syrup taste. An homage to such a dangerous concoction seems equally dangerous. But there was no time for intellectual badgering; it was time to chill out with a vengeful headache.

Before I left the office that day, the colleague asked me how it felt. I told her that I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do something like this to themselves. But that was a bullshit answer.

Hell, I probably went out that weekend and had five pints in a night. I suffered the same uneasiness on foot that night, the slight hangover in the morning. Drinking a hearty portion of heady beers is not particularly pleasant, especially when that last one really kicked you in the gut, but I still do it a few times a month. I’ve certainly cut back from a few years ago, but that doesn’t diminish the hypocrisy. The answer regarding my (over)consumption of drank wasn’t exactly fair. I’d like to think I was just too dazed out to realize what I was saying.

Of course that leads me to my problem here: When, in hindsight, I realize I’ve been hypocritical, I have to manufacture a compelling reason for why. Some eight hundred words in, I’m getting there. I promise.

Drank’s name and marketing are disingenuous and dangerous. It’s pathetic pandering. It needs to stop.

I don’t think Drank is necessarily dangerous on its own, except in the case of driving. If my stomach had been a little less full, or that can a little larger, I wouldn’t have trusted my own ability to drive home from the office that day. There is, in all fairness, a warning directly on the can: “Don’t operate heavy machinery.” It’s the safe solution, these cop-out warnings. It’s nothing more than another way for a manufacturer of unsafe goods to escape liability for the intended use of their product. Okay, maybe Drank isn’t “unsafe,” but it certainly borders a whole realm of dangers that don’t just involve the user.

I don’t think Drank will act as a gateway drug, as some have suggested. Despite its name, the leap from drinking something with melatonin and sipping on a glass of codeine and Mt. Dew is a grand one, although teenagers never fail in finding creative ways to get high. To accuse Drank of being a gateway drug into hardcore depressants would be like saying that every American with a caffeine habit to satisfy every morning is one bad day from picking up some speed and going on a multiple-day bender. Rational and moderating humans are built with hazard lights that go off in such occasions. Kids who will transition from Drank to its stronger cousin would have done so otherwise. Where there’s a will there’s a way, or so the cliché goes.

What troubles, and disgusts me, is the pandering to an illicit lifestyle. The drug from which Drank takes its name is extremely dangerous. It carries the risk of overdose and death, and numerous public figures have died from it. Popular “culture-makers” (if they can be called that) such as Lil’ Wayne are known to partake, and mention their abuse in various “songs” (if they can be called that). Countless more “regular” Americans inevitably have followed them to the end, as well. I think it’s indecent to glamorize something that has, and continues to kill or otherwise maim American lives.

It’s not even a matter of regulation or legality. I’m not necessarily calling for the FDA to come out and ban the product altogether, so all the “small government” fans can save themselves the trouble. Remember that inane debate about the mosque near Ground Zero? In the end, the opposition groups circled around a clear, non-inflammatory argument: of course the Muslim population of lower Manhattan is legally allowed to build a mosque there, but is it in good taste? Is it decent? Does it tarnish the lives lost on 9/11?

I hate to align myself with much of anything spouted by those forces, but I have to ask the same question of Drank: Is it a legal business? Sure, why not. Is it decent?

In all respects, no.

And you know what? I’m going to stand by what I said earlier. I don’t know why you would want to make yourself feel the way Drank does. Why anyone would want to duplicate the pathetic lives of the washed up or dead, the bling come and gone, the lifestyle of nothingness, is beyond me. Why anyone would market the dangers of this lifestyle is stunning to me, but American business has never been about decency, honorability, or playing fair. But then again, most of popular culture, its pedestal, and its kneeling zealots is incomprehensible to me.

If the creators of Drank are at all interested, I have some more promotional ideas for them to consider. Perhaps this, as some ad copy?

“Drank, a drink that does a little bit of everything. ‘Slows your roll,’ tastes like mediocre grape soda, gives crushing headaches, and, most importantly, encourages a lifestyle not of relaxation, but duplication.”