Multitrance Amsterdam Cannabis Energy Drink 250ml, Case of 24

It is an energy drink, and 80mg is the number that matters

Read the specification rather than the name and the product changes shape.

A 250ml can contains caffeine at 0.32mg per millilitre, which works out at 80mg in the can. It also contains taurine at 4mg per millilitre, which is 1,000mg a can, plus pantothenic acid and vitamins B6, B2 and B12. That is the formulation of a conventional energy drink, and it is what the product actually does.

The cannabis element is listed as a cannabis sativa extract. No cannabinoid figure is published for it by the manufacturer or by any retailer, which puts it in the same category as the rest of this maker's Cannabis-named range: the plant is a flavour and a brand, not a stated active ingredient. If cannabidiol is what you want, this is not the product and there is a note further down about what is.

So the honest summary is that this is an energy drink with a cannabis flavour, rather than a cannabis drink that happens to be fizzy. Everyone selling it has that the other way round.

For scale, 80mg is the same amount of caffeine as a standard 250ml energy drink and roughly what you would get from a cup of filter coffee. That is not a large or unusual figure in itself. It is simply a figure that nobody tells you, on a product where the name points somewhere else entirely.

What UK labelling law requires above 150mg a litre

This is worth setting out properly, because it is a legal requirement rather than an opinion and it applies directly to this can.

Under the Food Information rules, which in the UK are the assimilated version of Regulation 1169/2011, a drink other than tea or coffee that contains more than 150 milligrams of caffeine per litre must carry a specific statement. The required wording is: high caffeine content, not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women. It has to appear in the same field of vision as the name of the drink, and the caffeine content has to be given in milligrams per 100 millilitres.

This drink is at 320 milligrams per litre, which is more than twice the threshold. Its per-100ml figure is 32 milligrams. So the statement is mandatory on the can, and if you buy it you should expect to find it there.

We are quoting the wording the regulation requires rather than issuing advice of our own, and it is worth being clear about the difference. We are not telling you that 80mg of caffeine is bad for you. It is an ordinary amount, comparable to a coffee. What we are telling you is that this product sits in a regulated category, that the category comes with a mandatory label statement, and that it is odd to buy a drink without knowing which category it is in.

The reason this matters more than usual here is the branding. A shopper picking up something called a cannabis drink is not necessarily expecting a stimulant, and a shopper buying a case of twenty-four is buying rather a lot of one.

A crowded range, and one that does the opposite

Multitrance makes a considerable number of similar 250ml cans, and the names are close enough to cause genuine confusion when you shop around.

There is an Amsterdam Power, a Crazy Amsterdam, an Energizer, and a HaZe Cannabis Energy Drink. Our own listing records this one as the Amsterdam Power, though our distributor's page for a similar item carries the Crazy Amsterdam name, and we would not want to be more confident about which is which than the paperwork allows. They are all 250ml cannabis-flavoured energy drinks.

More interesting is that the same range also includes a Cannabis Chillout Drink. So one shelf holds a stimulant and something positioned as its opposite, both in the same size can, both cannabis-flavoured, and nothing on either explains that one of them carries 80mg of caffeine and the other is sold on the opposite idea. If you have bought one of these before and it did not do what you expected, that is very likely why.

We also stock a cannabis ice tea and a plain cannabis drink in the same 250ml format, plus a SoStoned energy drink from a different maker. All of them, including this one, are currently out of stock.

What a case of twenty-four actually is

This is one of the products where our pack quantity is confirmed rather than assumed, so the arithmetic is straightforward and worth doing.

Twenty-four cans of 250ml is six litres of drink. At 80mg of caffeine a can that is 1,920 milligrams of caffeine across the case, which is a number worth having in mind purely as a matter of what you are buying rather than as any kind of warning about consuming it in one go, which nobody would.

The point is simply that this is a trade case rather than a multipack. It suits a shop, a bar, an event or a household that genuinely gets through energy drinks. It does not suit somebody who wants to find out what a cannabis-flavoured energy drink tastes like, and there is no single-can option on this listing because our supplier does not sell it that way.

Cans keep well, so quantity is less of a problem here than it would be on something perishable. Store them cool and out of direct sunlight, which matters more for the vitamins than for the drink itself, since B vitamins degrade with light and heat over time.

If a cannabinoid is what you actually wanted

It is worth being direct about this, because the name will bring people here who want something else.

There is no published cannabinoid content for this drink. The cannabis sativa extract in the ingredients is not accompanied by a milligram figure from the manufacturer or from anyone selling it, and we are not going to invent one or imply that the extract means the same thing as a stated CBD content. It does not.

The pattern holds across this maker's range, and it is a useful thing to know when shopping it: products named for CBD state a figure, and products named for cannabis state a flavour. The same company sells a CBD coffee at 10mg a sachet and CBD pyramid tea bags at 150mg a box, both of which put the number on the front because the number is the product.

So if you want a cannabinoid in a drink, those are the shelves to be on. If you want a cannabis-flavoured energy drink and you now know it carries 80mg of caffeine, this is exactly what it says it is.

Who should not buy this

If you want CBD, this is not it. No cannabinoid figure is published for it by anyone, and the drink's active ingredient is caffeine.

If you are avoiding caffeine, or you are buying for somebody who should be, the label statement on the can exists for a reason and this drink is over twice the level that triggers it. That statement is not ours; it is the wording the regulation requires.

If you want to try one, a case of twenty-four is the wrong purchase, and there is no smaller option on this listing.

If you expected something relaxing from a cannabis-branded drink, note that the same maker sells a chillout drink and this is not it.

And all four of the cannabis drinks we carry are out of stock at the moment, so this is a question for another day.

18+ only, as with everything we sell.