[MONDAY MINUTE] CELSIUS Energy Drinks, Major League Baseball, & the "Pittsburgh Drug Trials"

What could the Major League Baseball “Pittsburgh drug trials” have in common with CELSIUS energy drinks 40 years later? While relatively unknown compared to the “BALCO performance enhancing substances” scandal, the first major drug punishments handed out across Major League Baseball involved players using cocaine in their respective clubhouses. In fact, during the late-1970s and early-1980s, drug use in society was considered a huge problem at hand…and that included affecting “as many as 40 percent of major league baseball players.” And while the Pittsburgh drug trials were lauded for cleaning up the game of illegal street drugs…usage of amphetamines continued to be super common in baseball until testing protocols changed in 2006. Then, baseball players responded by getting Adderall prescriptions, and more recently consuming copious energy drinks. So, what does this have to do with CELSIUS? Recently, rumors began flying around Major League Baseball that drinking the brand’s energy drinks could result in a false positive for cocaine. And I don’t need to be a toxicologist to assert the absurdity around that false claim, but hasn’t the public learned yet that athletes caught consuming illegal substances will always try placing blame on dietary supplements (or in this case a functional beverage that was incubated within the supplement industry).