APD Chief Pyle says he wouldn't be surprised if over-eager revelers start snorting to get drunk.
A new product scheduled to hit shelves this summer offers a new way to consume an alcoholic beverage.
Lipsmark LLC’s Palcohol, or powdered alcohol, will come in a one-ounce packet which is intended to be mixed with six ounces of water to create a “standard alcoholic drink,” according to the company’s website.
The product, which was approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in March, will be available in five flavors: rum, vodka, ‘Powderita,’ cosmopolitan and lemon drop. The product has not yet been priced.
Though the product hasn’t reached stores yet, it has already met some strong opposition.
Alaska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Delaware and Virginia already banned the production and sale of powdered alcohol in their respective states, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Many other states are in the process of passing legislation to follow suit, including Ohio.
Creator Mark Phillips said in a video on the company’s website that the product has raised many questions like whether Palcohol will make it easier for kids to get a hold of alcohol, if people will snort it to get drunk faster, if the product will make it easier to “spike” someone’s drink or make it easier to sneak alcohol into restricted places.
"My guess is that people will abuse it by snorting it, so it'll go much more rapidly to the brain," Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said. "Snorting alcohol would not be out of the realm of possibilities."
Phillips stated numerous times that the product would “take you an hour of pain to ingest the equivalent of one drink,” and that snorting is just “impractical and unpleasant.”
Athens City Mayor Paul Wiehl said he is still not sure how he feels about the product.
"I hesitate to say it’s good or bad,” Wiehl said. "My big worry is that it’s going to be abused rather than used.”
That growing uncertainty may be the reason why lawmakers like Rep. Jim Buchy, R-Greenville, and Rep. Ron Gerberry, D-Austintown, are leading the push to ban Palcohol in Ohio.
In mid-February, the Ohio House of Representatives voted almost unanimously to ban the sale of the product. Now, the House is awaiting a decision from the Ohio State Senate to complete the ban of the substance.
“I don’t know of any benefits of this product,” said Terry Koons, the assistant director of Health, Education, & Wellness for the Department of Social and Public Health at Ohio University.
He had concerns similar to those of many other skeptics.
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“Kids might want to snort it, and that could be very dangerous choice because the alcohol contents would just bypass the liver and enter straight into the bloodstream which will increase many risk factors,” Koons said.
Right now, Koons and the OU Department of Social and Public Health will wait to see if the product does, in fact, make it to the shelves in Ohio. If that is the case, Koons said OU will be prepared to educate students.
“If it’s legal then we will look into safe ways of consumption and what are some risk factors of ingesting it,” Koons added. “We will do some investigating and will make sure students here are prepared.”
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