Weird ways to consume alcohol have been popping up on social media and YouTube -- and are enough to make any college counselor or parent’s heart skip a beat. There’s booze-soaked gummy candy called Rummy Bears and Vodka Worms and hand-sanitizer cocktails that run around 120 proof.
Those risky and juvenile ways to get buzzed are pretty fringy, but now there’s something more sinister with the potential to become mainstream: powdered alcohol. It’s been approved by the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau, a division of the ATF. One small packet of trouble is 65% alcohol by volume and comes in five sugary flavors including rum, vodka, and kamikaze (their version of a Margarita).
Concerned legislators, parents and doctors are yelling for the FDA to step in and ban its sale before kids start turning up in the emergency room or worse because of it.
Our suggestion: Parents, get in front of powdered alcohol. Talk to your kids about how foolish it would be to drink it, eat it or sniff it. Now, before there’s an advertising onslaught (you know it’s coming), you have the opportunity to turn kids off to the product. Your kids do listen when you talk to them about avoiding dangerous situations, such as drinking or using marijuana and driving. Underage drunk driving fatalities have been declining over the past 10 years. So have a conversation about powdered alcohol, and let’s stay on that road.
Medically reviewed in January 2020.
