Powdered Alcohol Ban Up for Debate This Week

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Some state lawmakers want Michiganders to get on the wagon before the latest booze craze – powdered alcohol – hits the market.

Palcohol, as Arizona-based Lipsmark calls its product, becomes rum, vodka and other liquors when mixed with 6 ounces of water. Mark Phillips, the creator of palcohol, says lawmakers’ concerns are overblown, the Detroit Free Press.

Michigan isn’t alone in wanting to ban sales of the product, but Phillips says they’re acting “without knowing what they’re talking about.”

Among the concerns are that powdered alcohol could lead to more underage drinking and drunken driving, or could be mixed with other alcoholic beverages to create a super-alcoholic drink.

Those fears are supported by a new poll released Monday by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, which found that, nationally, 90 percent of adults think powdered alcohol will be misused by people under 21.

Additional findings:

• 85 percent are concerned that powdered alcohol will increase use of alcohol for people under 21
• 81 percent are concerned that it will be easy for people under 21 to buy powdered alcohol.
• 60 percent of adults in the United States favor bans on the sale of powdered alcohol.

“In the U.S., parents, communities, and healthcare providers already face serious challenges with underage alcohol abuse and its harmful effects on children’s health,” said Matt Davis, the poll director and a professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the U-M Medical School.

Last month, the Michigan State Senate voted 37-0 t to ban the sale of powdered alcohol, Michigan Radio reports. The House has yet to vote on the proposed ban, but is scheduled for debate before the House’s regulatory reform committee this week.

Powdered alcohol has already been banned in Louisiana, South Carolina and Vermont.

Phillips said banning powdered alcohol could be dangerous because those who want it, both of legal drinking age and those under 21, underground to find it. “You can’t legislate behavior,” he told the Free Press, noting that Prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s and 1930s, and “it won’t work” now.

He said fears that it could be mixed to create a super alcoholic beverage are unfounded because it would create a consistency similar to mush.