A public service post a month behind your holiday drinking.

When we first came across SECURITY Feel Better ("SFB"), a nonalcoholic anti gueule de bois pear-flavored digestif, we thought it a gag product. From its absence of alcohol (digestifs usually have a high alcohol content), its light color (digestifs usually are dark), its artichoke wash (the raw ingredient is usually fruit or grains), to its off-English product name and Soviet-pop look. And its drinker's miracle mend.

Not so. It's real enough. And French. And from all reports, effective.

A FRENCH PRODUCT THAT WORKS AND DOES A BODY GOOD
Not Widely Available In France

SFB claims to reduce the alcohol levels in the body and the fog and discomfort of surfeit quickly restoring vigor and alertness.

SECURITY does not mask the alcohol but it stimulates the various enzymatic systems that facilitate digestion. It accelerates the process of elimination and digestion.

But last year the logy-headed and blotto of France were denied this French product. In France when you are drunk or discomforted by surfeit, well, you damn well better stay drunk and discomforted till nature takes its course.

At least this was the understood intent of last year's D.G.C.C.R.F. (the mile-long acronym for Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes, General Division for Competition, Consumption and the Repression of Frauds) action against SFB.

FRENCH HANGOVER CURE COULD COME TO BRITAIN
DESPITE DRINK-DRIVING FEARS

PARIS February 28, 2006 (Telegraph) - France has banned sales of a potion that makers claim eliminates alcohol from the blood up to six times faster than usual amid fears that it may encourage drink-driving. ... The French authorities say they cannot stop the potion's export but ordered its removal from supermarket shelves pending investigations. The government said it may bring court proceedings against the makers [PPN SA] for deception and false advertising.

But a similar case in 2000 ended in victory for PPN, which says it expects to sell a million bottles this year in Germany, Switzerland and Korea, with deals pending in America, China and Britain.

On 02.24.06 the D.G.C.C.R.F. banned the sale of SFB after an article in le Figaro (Une potion 'anti-Alcootest' chez Auchan, 02.20.06) baldly suggested SFB was marketing to drunk drivers. And there is some truth to that claim. And a good deal of business sense in it as well.

The original product name was St. Christophe, who, even in secular France, is the patron saint of travelers and, by extension, drivers. To rehabilitate St. Christophe, the drink was rechristened SECURITY Feel Better, a vast unimprovement in English. The text on the SFB packaging had read:

If your blood/alcohol exceeds 50mg/l you are positive, or in breach of the law if you take the wheel. Drink Security Feel Better, 30-45 minutes later, test yourself again. What is your alcohol level? How do you feel?"

Seems plain enough to us.

The D.G.C.C.R.F.'s position seemed to be that drunk drivers should not be alerted to the possiblity of sobriety before getting behind the wheel. If you are drunk don't cheat by sobering up. By this reasoning, the D.G.C.C.R.F. would also seek to withhold triple-bypasses as the false sense of arterial security may lure weak-willed French to eat plates and plates of bacon.

SFB has since removed all mention of driving from its marketing materials and the ban, but not the opprobrium, was lifted last May.

PFFT (What is this?): No feel better 4 | Do not drive responsibly 4 | Rayonnement français 0

That image...LOL!

Wicked and so appropriate.