Is bulk caffeine powder deadly and in need of regulation?

Not too long ago, bulk caffeine powder came under fire by the media. Purchasing bulk supplements like caffeine on Amazon and elsewhere was touted as some kind of wild, unregulated frontier that you should be afraid of. Fear is a great way to manipulate.

Pretty much every adult who hates Mondays knows about caffeine, and caffeine powder itself is a wildly popular supplement for students and athletes alike due to its affordability, ubiquity and stimulating properties. It’s harmless for healthy adults to take when used with awareness, research, respect and responsibility.

Not to say that caffeine has no potential to be deadly, but this post is written with the intent to teach everyone to have a healthy respect for caffeine and all other substances. Knowledge can tell us how much of a substance will help and how much will hurt.

Logan Stiner, death by caffeine overdose

Though controversies over caffeine have been coming and going since energy drinks became a thing, this is what got it started again. Earlier in 2014, a high school senior took too much caffeine powder:

Logan Stiner, 18 years old, was found unresponsive by his brother at home after ingesting an unknown amount of pure caffeine powder, possibly mixed into a drink.¹

Logan had a bright future. It was extinguished prematurely by a completely preventable mistake.

How severe was Stiner’s mistake? According to the coroner, Logan had 70 micrograms/ml of caffeine in his blood. A coffee drinker by contrast would only have 3 to 5 micrograms/ml in their blood. If 1 cup of coffee has up to 200 mg caffeine, it would be the equivalent of drinking approximately 14 cups of coffee, or taking an entire teaspoon of pure caffeine powder.

A teaspoon seems small, but this is a LOT of caffeine. Way more than any person should take.

Unfortunately, this student’s ignorance, willful or not, has been used to call upon the FDA to create restrictions on caffeine because of one silly mistake, the equivalent of recalling automobiles because of an accident.

For example, read what the coroner on this sensational news post had to say:

“You’d have to be a chemist to figure out how much to put in so that you’re not in a lethal amount,” Evans said. “You’d have to really know what you were doing and have scales.”

Firstly, (and media stupidity aside) you should not need to be a chemist to figure out what dose you should take. If you understand what you’re taking, how much you should take, how the metric system works, you know how to count, you can measure and use scales, and you get your product from a reputable vendor who tests and labels their stuff appropriately, then you do not need to be a chemist to take a supplement.

Secondly, this guy makes it sound like you couldn’t possibly know what you were doing with even the right information, and that scales are special equipment that only chemists and other top science wizards can have. This is a wrongful appeal to authority.

The truth is that scales are affordable and widely available, and all the information you need on caffeine is freely available.

If you are taking bulk supplements where dosage is critical, you should use a scale anyway. It’s not enough to rely on the scoop in some cases since powder density can change easily. The scoops are meant for estimations only and should not be used when precision is necessary.

Lastly, if you read up on what you take before you take it, you would know that caffeine can be harmful, as can many other common supplements and household substances if you ingest too much or any of it at all.

Is caffeine deadly?

Caffeine is the world’s most popular drug.

It’s found naturally in a variety of substances like coffee, tea, guayusa and yerba mate. It has been isolated and sold in energy drinks, shots, candies, soaps, pills, and even bulk powder. Something so common can’t possibly be deadly, right?

In this case, the dose makes the poison. Caffeine can be deadly if you take too much, much like if you take too much Tylenol² , another widely available non-prescription drug. But the instructions on the labeling for those products has a specific dosage, and often explains that you should only take it for a certain amount of time.

Unfortunately, all the information in the world will not matter if you do not read it.

Caffeine can also be deadly for people with pre-existing cardiovascular or heart conditions, known or unknown. Common sense would say “do not ingest caffeine.” If you’ve had caffeine before and you do not have a family history of heart defects, you may not have an issue, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and pay a visit to your doctor anyway.
People also respond to caffeine differently. There are many variables like weight and body composition, the rate that the body metabolizes caffeine, and so forth. This can affect how a person responds to a dose.

Despite all of this however, caffeine has had a very low number of fatalities relative to its ubiquity and popularity.³ To put it into perspective, hundreds of thousands more people have drowned in the last year alone⁴ than died of caffeine overdose in the last century. I don’t see anyone banning water.

My point here is that caffeine is safe and useful if you can respect it. Caffeine is only deadly when abused or misused.

How much caffeine is too much?

The amount of caffeine in a typical 8 oz. cup of coffee can range from 95 mg to 200 mg. 8 oz. of tea can go from 14 mg to 70 mg with green tea sitting somewhere in the middle.⁵ If you’ve ingested a couple cups of these in a day or a single sitting and haven’t died, you may be fine as long as you pay attention to dosage.

Caffeine in concentrated forms such as pills or powders can accidentally be taken in sufficient quantities to cause vomiting, unconsciousness, and death. A single box of Vivarin or No-Doze (US Products) can be fatal if taken at one time. Although possible with coffee or other strongly caffeinated drink, it generally requires much more awareness of the large dosage before dangerous levels are reached.⁶

Here is what Erowid.org’s caffeine vault has to say about lethality of caffeine and dosage:

Caffeine doses of 200 mg or higher can cause unpleasant symptoms including nausea, headache, and irregular heartbeat, while dose of 750 – 1000 mg can cause severe toxic symptoms. Severe caffeine intoxication can result in nausea, vomiting, anxiety, tremor, seizures, tachycardia, dysrhythmias, hypotension, hypokalemia, and metabolic acidosis.

Several fatalities resulting from caffeine overdose have been documented, but they are extremely rare relative to its widespread use. In the case of a massive caffeine overdose, vomiting often protects against fatal poisoning, but some deaths have still resulted.⁷

As you see above, going past 200 mg is a recipe for trouble.

Personally, I avoid having more than 100 mg in a single dose. 50 mg is ideal for myself, and I tend to space these doses out by a few hours, and never take more than 400 mg in a single day.

(I’ve covered here before that you really don’t need more than 50 or 100 mg at a time; any more leads to diminishing returns and a buildup of tolerance, meaning more caffeine is needed in the future to have the same effect.)

So a “small dose” like a teaspoon or so is actually a huge dose and you should not be taking that much at all. More is not necessarily better.

Should we be concerned about caffeine overdose? Should we regulate it more?

We should be more concerned about ignorance than about making new regulations.

It’s nearly impossible to take a lethal amount of something when you do your research (and consult with your doctor), read your labels, and understand how you respond to a given substance.

Typically, most supplement retailers will have some kind of dosage recommendation or put a warning on their label for a substance like caffeine where dosage is important.

Powder City actually has a warning label on their bulk caffeine powder that makes it clear that caffeine is not to be abused:

Moral of the story? If you cannot be bothered to research and read up on the substances you want to take or read the damn labels, then do not take them. It sounds harsh, but it’s really that simple.

While they are a helpful reminder, adding more gigantic WARNING labels to stuff isn’t going to help people who never read or do their research. Banning or restricting substances isn’t going to prevent ignorant people from harming themselves intentionally or unintentionally with something else.

Should I still bother with caffeine bulk powder?

By now, we already know that caffeine is safe when used wisely and in small and well-measured doses.

This is why getting it in bulk is great: By dose and compared with any energy drink (generally $3 for 200 mg) or cup of Starbucks coffee ($1.65 for 100 – 200 mg), bulk powder is by far the most economically sensible way to get this standard issue pick-me-up.

• Caffeine anhydrous (starting at 10 grams for $1.52)
• Caffeine citrate (starting at 10 grams for $1.89)

Doing the math, 10 grams of either and taking a small dose of it is like purchasing an energy drink or Starbucks coffee for 3 cents a piece. It’s an absolute steal.

But again, let’s remember the fatal mistakes that some people have made with caffeine.

If you know that you can take it upon yourself to respect caffeine, understand the smallest dose you need to take and measure it accurately with a scale, and want to save money on all that coffee or energy drinks, then by all means pick up some bulk caffeine powder and save yourself some money.

Otherwise, do yourself a favor and do not get any. Stick to coffee or tea, they may be a little more pricey but they will be much safer as long as you don’t overdo those either.

Conclusion

Despite the small outcries against caffeine, it is and will still be one of the most popular and widely used substances in the world.

Though bulk powder and pills and highly-caffeinated energy drinks make it easy for the ignorant to abuse or overdose on it, staying informed and having a healthy respect for caffeine (and all other substances) will ensure that caffeine respects you in kind no matter what source you use.

Always do your research, pay attention to dosage, and always take your supplements with care.

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1. Erowid Caffeine Vaults : Health : Overdoses & Deaths ↩

2. Tylenol Overdose Risk Is Staggering; Acetaminophen Safeguards Remain Insufficient: Report ↩

3. Erowid Caffeine Vaults : Health : Overdoses & Deaths ↩

4. WHO | Drowning ↩

5. Mayo Clinic – Caffeine content for coffee, tea, soda and more ↩

6. Erowid Caffeine Vault : Dosage ↩

7. Erowid Caffeine Vaults : Health : Overdoses & Deaths ↩