Society's Child
Palcohol first made news last spring when it briefly received the greenlight from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, before the bureau backtracked and said the label approvals had been given in error.
On Wednesday, bureau spokesman Tom Hogue told The Associated Press the issues were resolved and that four varieties of Palcohol were approved. But Hogue noted that states can also regulate alcohol sales in their borders.
The latest approval is a step forward for a small company whose product plans have already sparked controversy.
Several states have already moved to ban powdered alcohol, including lawmakers in Colorado who last month advanced legislation to temporarily halt its sale. Concerns have included abuse by minors and whether Palcohol's light weight would make it easy to sneak alcohol into public events.
Palcohol is simply freeze-dried alcohol packaged in a small, portable pouch. The powder comes in different flavors and can be mixed with water for the equivalent of an alcoholic drink.
Dr. Kennon Heard, an ER doctor and medical toxicologist at the University of Colorado, told CBS News last year that he had a number of concerns about the product. "Given the flavors it comes in, there's the potential for it to be very appealing to small children," he said.
He also pointed out that because Palcohol is an entirely new form of alcohol, there's a risk for inadvertent misuse by people unfamiliar with its potency.
"Nothing even close to this has been on the market in the recent past in the U.S., or ever," attorney Robert Lehrman told "CBS This Morning" when the product first won, then lost, its approval last year.
"Underage drinking is a big concern when it comes to powderized alcohol," said Lehrman. "I do think parents and teachers -- this probably will get their attention in a big way."
A statement on the Palcohol website says the company hopes to have the product for sale this summer. Palcohol founder Mark Phillips noted the approval of his product in an email early Wednesday morning, but wasn't immediately available for further comment.
Hogue said the bureau's evaluation is centered on whether labels accurately reflect what's in the product.
"Potential for abuse isn't grounds for us to deny a label," he said.
Previously, Phillips had said he came up with the idea for Palcohol because he wanted a way to enjoy alcoholic drinks after hiking or other activities without having to lug around heavy bottles.
Comment: Mr. Phillips is going to be a very rich man.
Reader Comments
Wow! I wonder how it works? I will look it up. So alcohol is a solid when dried? Mysterious.
who wants to bet that this powder is derived in a laboratory from a cocktail of chemicals. freezedried? bull. america has no water for the beverage industry anymore. i have an idea. let's eliminate the big boys at the top and just leave it to the craftsmen. you don't like that. okay. let's choose the top ten in each category and dump the rest. sometimes competition creates overreach. waste. corner cutting. cheating. spiking. loss of integrity. i would be okay with sharing yosemite's exiting water with negro (i'm sorry, it's my personal favorite) but do we really need budweiser, schlitz, miller, corona and five others on top of 100 of the best brewed beer in the world? and another thing. stop selling poor people and alcoholics poison. and one more thing. cultivated american hops is where it's at.
Perhaps they can figure out how to turn the fracking crap in our aquifers back into water.
I mean, t'were it possible, surely it would have been done long before now - by sheer accident if no other reason. I've heard freeze dryer equipment is now available for home use - and I can't believe on one has tried freeze-drying alcohol before.
Still, if it were possible, I suppose you'd have to bring the temperature down to the point the alcohol was no longer volatile. Maybe that would essentially be the freezing point for alcohol, I'm uneducated in this arena so I don't know.
And maybe, just maybe, frozen alcohol would produce a powder if freeze dried.
If that's what's happening, it beggers belief that it hasn't been utilized before.






The producers of this new drug, have tried to amplify the idea, that their product is uncomfortable to snort. But people will be able to amplify the effect of this new drug, by wither sniffing this product, or injecting this product. America will do anything to make money, especially when it comes to endorsing a taxable product that is dangerous and horribly bad for the well being and health of it's citizens.