A social worker who has been involved in the field of substance abuse for the past decade is on a mission to ban energy drinks for children under the age of 16, saying the effect of caffeine cannot be underestimated.

In the wake of the recent introduction of the drink trademarked Cocaine, which caused somewhat of a stir, Anthony Girard has now gone a step further from merely appealing to the authorities to look seriously into the energy drinks market, who is consuming such beverages, and their long-term effect on underage youths.

He is recommending that such drinks be regulated to protect children because, in the long term, they could have the same negative effect as alcohol, he maintained.

"They should not be made available to 10-year-olds," he insisted.

Caffeine, he explained, is a psychoactive drug that acts on the central nervous system, altering brain function. "You can get hooked on it. Very few alcoholics are born; they are made with time," he pointed out. "You get addicted to caffeine and then you start mixing it, or replacing it with alcohol.

"The danger of mixing is that if you drink four vodkas they have a certain effect but if you mix them with energy drinks that effect is cancelled out, so you drink more. It basically takes you longer to realise you are getting drunk.

"Caffeine is as addictive as alcohol, so how possible is it that caffeine-addicted 13-year-olds today become alcohol-addicted 17-year-olds," he asked.

He pointed out that caffeine-based energy drinks are also "dangerously" being mixed with other recreational drugs.

Quoting a recent article in the Daily Mail newspaper on energy drinks, he said mixing alcohol and caffeine is "like getting into a car and applying the accelerator and the brake pedals at the same time". The article also said that even among children as young as 12, almost 30 per cent are regularly consuming energy drinks.

The local situation does not seem to be too different, Mr Girard believes. Energy drinks can be bought at supermarkets by children, he said, adding that he knows from feedback from 13- and 14-year-old students that they are using them as a substitute for alcohol.

Mr Girard's informal campaign started when Cocaine hit the market, adding a new dimension to the phenomenon due to its name, which "plays on the mind", and the fact that it contains more than three times as much caffeine as other energy drinks.

The Cocaine issue is now stale, Mr Girard insisted. It was the straw that broke the camel's back but the problem encapsulated all energy drinks.

These originally came into being as "health" drinks, popular with long-haul travellers and to restore energy in athletes, having no caffeine content, he explained. Gradually, the potential of caffeine as a legal stimulant was tapped and energy drinks moved on to becoming recreational.