The Josh Innes Show - Phones and Energy Drinks Banned At Schools

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

This is not shocking, but after Alabama banned cell phones from schools, teachers are reporting positive results. What was life like when we weren't addicted to our phones? Also, kids were having heart issues at a Tennessee school, so the school banned energy drinks. I'm fairly certain energy drinks almost killed me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, everybody, rocking and rolling and whatnot. Glad you're listening. Here's a headline for you. Energy drinks banned from elementary school in Macon County, that is, in Tennessee, in Westmoreland, Tennessee. It's a rural elementary school, and they are outlawing energy drinks. Starting Monday, so that was yesterday. Westside Elementary School in Westmoreland said its students can no longer have energy drinks while on campus.

Just a few weeks into the school year, the school district said, A few West Side students were forced to go to the school nurse with elevated heart rates. First off, it really annoys me that school starts so early. Like, I was walking Ross and one of these very nice affluent suburbs of Detroit called Royal Oak. Very nice place. And I'm walking Ross, and I see, I think it was Royal Oak High School or something. And on the sign, they haven't even gone back to school yet, mind you. But on the sign, it's already got two days off for Labor Day.

I'm like, well, why don't you just start school after Labor Day? There's an idea. Like the kids go to school way too early now. Just let them go. Like I'm trying to remember when we went back at least late August. It had to been late August. But just wait until after Labor Day. But I guess part of the issue you run into, and this could be it,

is I think that they start playing high school football like a week before college. So like a lot of places start playing games, like even jamborees and stuff, at the end of the end of August. So that might be an issue. But I'm fairly certain you can still play a football game even if you're not in school, right? Anyway, let's play a couple commercials. We'll get into some other stuff. Yeah, so I don't know.

Like start school late. Start school in September. Don't start school in August. Let the kids have August off. And then start fresh in September after Labor Day. You know, first weekend of the college football season, the first full weekend. You got games usually on Labor Day. Go to school on that, start school on a freaking Tuesday.

Who cares? But anyway, the kids had elevated heart rates. You should not sell energy drinks at schools, especially to elementary school kids. Damn kids' hearts are going to explode. I'm fairly certain that what caused my episode in St. Louis where I had to go to the ER, they said it was anxiety and stuff, which I don't fully believe. I guess it was part of it because I was like speaking like Latin. I couldn't talk.

I mean, I thought I was having a stroke. It was truly one of the most baffling things that's ever happened. but I didn't have a stroke. Apparently, I just, like, I had some sort of issue. They said it was anxiety. I believe that caffeine played a huge role in that because I was drinking these drinks, sometimes twice a day that had, like, 250 milligrams of caffeine.

I was drinking, like, 5, 600 milligrams of caffeine. Actually, let me see here. I'm genuinely curious to see how much caffeine I was drinking at a time. Like, I'm not a big caffeine guy. So that is called, what the hell do they call those places? is the, how am I drawing a blank on those damn drinks? They're like a cult, basically, but they're so delicious. I forgot what they were called.

It'll come to me in the middle of a sentence here. But herbal life. So herbal life tea caffeine content. Let's see. 85 milligrams per serving. That's a different tea. That's not like the drinks that I get. The drinks I get, I want to say they were telling me had like 200 milligrams of caffeine.

Let's see. herbal life drinks herbal life drinks caffeine content let's see I mean I'm telling you it was like 200 200 milligrams and I would sometimes go and get two of these things I had no idea how much caffeine I was drinking and I felt like my heart was going to explode like it was

ridiculous so I eventually had to start getting drinks that were less caffeinated they were like half calf if you will of that and I'm fairly certain that's what caused me to just have a fucking breakdown because of all the caffeine and I'm just not a big caffeine guy and then out of the blue I start drinking all this caffeine and I feel like I'm going to die. Now imagine you do that with kids. Like what is the average caffeine content? Average caffeine content of an energy drink. Let's see what the average caffeine is. The average caffeine content is 100 to 300 milligrams per serving. How much caffeine should a kid have? Not that much. This is just pretty freaking

obvious right like kids shouldn't be drinking these heavily caffeinated drinks now you have a coke or whatever now i'd argue that that energy drinks are flat out poison like you know monsters and all that shit it's poison and i wouldn't advocate drinking it and i also understand the hypocrisy and that i drink a shit ton of beer and i like my diet cokes everything is poison and everything you love is going to kill you but you certainly shouldn't have kids at school drinking energy drinks Pissing hot, like, you know, neon green because they're drinking energy drinks that are that, you know, caffeinated. They shouldn't be doing that. So I get it.

When I was in school, we had a soda machine and we had like a candy machine, right? So like after lunch, you could go and you could buy a soda. You could buy like little bags of grandma's cookies and shit like that. But I've never been into energy drinks, but I love these herbal life drinks I was drinking. And I think that was part of what really crushed me. And so I stopped drinking those. and I started drinking the lighter ones of those, and I was fine, and I wasn't dealing with it. But, like, this morning, I drank a, I've got these energy packets that I get that are supposed to be natural energy or whatever, because I don't drink coffee, I drink some tea, whatever, and that's kind of how I get my energy.

And those have me feeling fine. I told you the other day when I did the pod and I had coffee, I never drink coffee. I know I sound like a child. I had coffee, and I thought I was going to jump through the ceiling, like there was going to be a rocket launcher up my end. ass and I was just going to the moon. Let's see the news. Let's see the news. The nurse soon learned that the young students had drank energy drinks early in the day.

She, the nurse, just got to looking around and she said she checked the cafeteria. She saw several energy drinks that had been brought in lunch boxes and that sort of thing. And she asked if we could do something about that. In response, the health director, Casey Brauner sent a letter out to parents in which she cites the American Academy of Pediatrics findings that energy drinks are, quote, not appropriate for children. Going forward, the letter reads, energy drinks are no longer allowed at Westside and would be thrown away if found on a student. Quote, we're hoping, too, if parents were unaware of the health risks that energy drinks pose for their children, just to kind of make

them aware and ask for their support, Bronner said. So that's also interesting that they've banned them and they will take them from you if you bring them to school, because it is kind of an issue where you're talking about parents, right? Like it's a parent's choice if they want to let their kid drink energy drinks. I'm sure there is somebody who will call these people in this small town Nazis. And it's also not really the place of the health person at a school to explain to people whether or not energy drinks or anything are healthy or not healthy too, right? So it's kind of not their place, but it is their school. Look, if I'm them, I don't want to put myself in a position where at my school some kid has a heart attack or dies. Remember when we heard the

stories about those wacky energy drinks they have at Panera? And somebody drank one in their heart basically exploded? Like, if you're a school, you don't want it on your hands that some kids chug a lug and a monster and ends up dying. That's not what you want. So I get where they're coming from on that. I just never drank energy drinks and still don't. So, like, I tried a Lonnie.

Is that an energy drink? I tried one of those recently, and I just, I don't like them. Now, another situation with a school, and this is in Alabama, the school, the school, the school or the state actually banned cell phones in school and this teacher said that the change has been instant and magic in what's happened with the kids so Alabama enacted a new law keeping phones out of classrooms for 2025 2026 one teacher has seen instant change today all of my students 100% of them took notes in my class did their assignment asked for help when they got stuck and turned it in and then when they were done they talked to each other like wow what a concept quote I've been pulling my hair out for like eight years. Has it been easy of a solution this whole time? Ask Buckwalter. His name is Jonathan Buckwalter, a teacher at Tuscaloosa County High School 11th grade. Yeah, it is. Keep people off their fucking phones. But that's an even tougher one because you'll have parents fighting that the kids need their phones to communicate with them. When we were in

school, when I was in high school, this is the early days of cell phones. So not everybody even had cell phones, right? But if you brought a cell phone to school, they would confiscate. it if they found it, and then you would get it at the end of the day. Every now and then we would do metal detectors. It was so random when we did metal detectors at school. It wasn't every day. We weren't in some, like, ghetto-ass school where they were checking us every day for guns. But randomly, there would be metal detectors.

And if you had a cell phone or something like that, it would be confiscated. And that was back, you know, when you were playing snake on a brick Nokia and, like, all you had to, like, sending a text took an hour. Now it's a whole computer in your pocket. So, like, there is a case to be made in the value of cell phones because people's lives are on their cell phones. Their calculators are on their cell phones. Like, there's an argument. But if you truly want people to pay attention and be engaged in what you're doing, then don't have them on cell phones. Just look at you as a person, as a human, as an adult.

As an adult, you're more engaged with people when you're not on your cell phones. This is opening the door for people to talk with each other. People don't talk anymore. They text each other. Me and my wife will sometimes text each other in the same room. Jilly will go, why the fuck are you texting me? Just show this to me. Mostly it's when I'm looking at Reels on Instagram and I'll start scrolling through and instead of wanting to reach over because I'm too fat and lazy to just reach over and show

her the video, I will literally send my wife a reel. I will send Jilly a real. She goes, I'm sitting right here and I'm like, this is what we do as people. This is who we are now. Who we are as people are a people that text each other sitting right next to each other. I am 100% in favor of banning cell phones in school. You can, like, here's what should have to happen. When you get into a class, it's kind of like when you go to a comedy show and you put them in those little bags because the comedian doesn't want you filming.

When you walk into a class, you get rid of your phone, it goes into a box or something. Not even a box. You just put it in these little bags. Invest in those little bags that they use at comedy shows or concerts or wherever. Put it in the little bag. Sit the bag next to you or under your desk or wherever. and then they will unlock when class is over. You can look through, you know, your stuff during your time in the hall or whatever.

And then when you go back into class, you put them back in a bag and they lock. Supply the kids with these bags, you know, for every class, and then boom. Like, we do need to get to a point where you talk to each other more. Like, I hate talking to people, and I hate that I hate talking to people. And there's a lot of kids that are going to grow up having no idea what it's like to have interpersonal communication or those kind of relationships with people. They'll have no clue. and we need to get back to that. We need to get back to talking with each other

because, like, I'm almost uncomfortable talking with people, and that's what the internet and cell phones have done to us, right? So, good on them in Alabama. Good on them in Tennessee for banning the energy drinks. Imagine some hopped-up kids on some energy drinks and on their cell phones and shit in school.

Anywho. All right, more to come.