David Edwards, a Harvard professor of biomedical engineering, has developed a lipstick-sized device called AeroShot that just might be the next caffeine craze.
Each AeroShot canister contains 100 milligrams of lime-flavored caffeine and vitamin B, making it about as caffeinated as a cup of coffee. You can see it in action
here.
But
CBS and other news agencies are raising an alarm, warning that the inhalant delivery method could turn it into a club drug. Since inhaling the stimulant doesn't give you a sensation of fullness, as drinking a large coffee drink might, critics of AeroShot argue that a person could easily consume too much caffeine.
Edwards disagrees. “Anything new, there’s always some knee-jerk reaction that makes us believe ‘Well, maybe it’s not safe,’” Edwards said, noting that the package for AeroShot warns consumers not to have more than 3 per day.
Still, the product isn't exactly flying off the shelves. The New York Daily News revealed that stores in the city haven't been able to sell many AeroShots, despite them being on sale for about a month. “I haven’t had any repeat customers for that,” said
Don Singh, a clerk at Andy’s Deli on Seventh Ave. in Greenwich Village.