Don't snort this at home kids
As if alcohol isn't a BIG enough problem nationwide, now it's only going to get worse with the recent Federal approval of easily transported and even easier to conceal powdered alcohol.
This will of course be even more problematic in "college towns" where binge drinking is considered a rite of passage.
How many rapes -- reported and unreported -- involved alcohol? How many violent domestic assaults? Or deaths by drunk drivers, or falls, or even suicides?
Fortunately our progressive state of Massachusetts, according to a legal interpretation by the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, will prohibit the sale of powdered alcohol because it does not meet the definition of an alcoholic beverage.
Probably hinges on the word "beverage," which is pretty much synonymous with wet.
But if nearby states don't move to ban it you can bet it's the kind of thing that will find its way into our town, UMass dorm rooms and the Mullins Center when hosting an EDM concert.
Rather than approving it for nationwide use the Feds should have told Palcohol to take a powder.
You would suggest they don't approve this stuff?
ReplyDeleteIt would still get made, distributed and consumed. Just now it will be purchased in the liquor store vs. the dorm room along side of other black market items. It will be subject to quality standards vs. not.
I would suggest a legal market that can be regulated and overseen is better model for us all vs. one modeled after the heroine market.
The problem you speak of with students drinking out of control has its roots in the same black market you suggest could help. Most students, esp those on campus are too young to legally drink...thus they are drinking via the black market with all the consequences (and costs outlined in this blog).
How the hell do you "powder" ETOH --- a substance which is so adept at evaporation that it is also useful in removing water from things (or at least I use it for that).
ReplyDeleteWell, Ed, you've obviously missed the mountain of press this has gotten over the he past several years.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to type endlessly, lecturing the world about the error of its ways, AND learn at the same time.
ReplyDeleteABCC will regret that decision -- the "B" stands for "Beverage" and if this isn't one, then it is like liquid ETOH used for industrial or scientific purposes -- they don't have jurisdiction over it.
ReplyDeleteEssentially the Acetylene in Acetone approach -- how ingenious.
ReplyDelete(And if this is banned, wanna bet that undergrads won't try to do the same thing themselves? Possibly with quite toxic results from the chemical concoction they create to absorb the ETOH?)
No, the conservative media has not covered this at all -- and I have no use for TIME Magazine or ABC News...
It does, however, raise an interesting issue -- the point I have often made about how it is much easier to smuggle drugs into a dorm than it is to smuggle diluted liquid ETOH into a dorm (e.g. cases of beer which are what, 5% ETOH?).
Folks, Jack Wilson was right - we are much better off letting 18-year-old college students drink in our presence than having them drinking in secret -- it isn't like they aren't doing the latter....
Actually I think Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob were right (not Jack Wilson and Dr. Ed).
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