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Alcoholic Energy Drink Made Md. Woman 'Lose Mind'

STEVENSVILLE, Md. (WJZ) ―Four Loko is a popular new drink packed with high amounts of alcohol and caffeine. Friends and family say a Maryland woman is dead after the drink made her lose her mind.

Kelly McPherson
explains the concern growing over the drink's safety.

The FDA is already looking into these products that combine caffeine with alcohol. An Eastern Shore community says their loved one is the latest victim of these potent drinks.

This vigil is about more than the lost of 21-year-old Courtney Spurry who died in Saint Michael's this weekend when she crashed a Ford pickup truck into a telephone poll after a night out with her girlfriends. They drank Four Loko, an energy drink with 12 percent alcohol content—the equivalent of five-six beers in one cheap can.

"She changed that night," said Abby Sherwood, friend of the victim. "She was not the same person. She could not remember people's names. She passed out within 30 minutes of having the alcoholic beverage."

After drinking two cans of Four Loko, friends say Courtney grabbed somebody else's keys and went off.

"Courtney, she was a little peanut. She was 4' 8", weighted 100 pounds," said Lewis Spurry, the victim's uncle. "So you can imagine drinking a couple of these drinks and all of a sudden she has no control of herself."

"We have the ability to get Four Loko off the shelves nationwide," a friend of the victim said at the Thursday night vigil.

That's the community's new mission. It's already happened in Michigan and in Washington State, where nine college students nearly died at a house party.

"Every one of them that were hospitalized drank Four Loco," said a law official.

One nearby store is being proactive.

"Graul's Market is community oriented and if it saves our community than its coming off the shelves," said Lisa Phillips, general manager of Graul's Market.

"A high and a low do not mix well together," Sherwood said.

The victims' friends say none of them will ever pick up a can of Four Loko again. They say they hope the new website they started called banfourloko.com will be a platform to get all of these beverages out of stores in Maryland and across the country.

The makers of Four Loko say the caffeine content is no more than a cup of coffee and they stand by their product.

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