SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Hey. Morning, BYU students. Feeling a little hung over today because you had a diet cola? This week, Brigham Young University - from whom, by the way, we've gotten some very fine interns and staffers - announced this week they'll sell caffeinated soft drinks on campus.
They'd been absent from school grounds since the 1950s when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints determined that the hot drinks prohibited in religious texts include caffeinated sodas. Church leaders decided in 2012 that only coffee and tea were intended to be eschewed under Mormonism's "Word of Wisdom" scriptures. But BYU's dining services said because young Mormons had not grown up drinking caffeinated soft drinks, no students requested them. But now, quote, "consumer preferences have clearly changed," said the university.
Tweets rolled in under hashtags that include caffeinegate (ph). Cokehibition (ph) is over, said one. But still, no coffee, tea or caffeine-saturated energy drinks on the BYU campus. That's why we're so glad our show is on in the morning when Brigham Young students are still alert. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
