West Virginia bans grain alcohol. The quotes are priceless.

est Virginia’s alcohol board will no longer permit the sale of high-proof grain alcohol, citing safety concerns from college officials who say it is often purchased by students.

The state’s Alcohol Beverage Control Administration said the action against the 190-proof booze, which is 95 percent pure alcohol, was not in response to any specific incidents..

[...]

“It has traditionally been purchased by groups of people, often college students, who are intent on getting very drunk and who suffer serious consequences from a severe hangover to falling victim to sexual assault or even a car crash,” she said.

Lapelle said she was unaware of any such incidents involving grain alcohol among students at Marshall…

[...]

“It’s a decent move, or it was,” said Phyllis Hitchcock, manager of Classic Liquors in Huntington, Marshall’s home. “But the biggest sale of it was for labs and stuff. It’s used as a cleaning solvent.”

[...]

“We applaud their efforts to try to reduce the negative consequences of the consumption of grain alcohol,” said WVU spokeswoman Becky Lofstead.

But Lofstead said she, too, could recall no specific episodes blamed on grain alcohol abuse.

So to prevent college students from abusing grain alcohol, we’re going to ban it from everyone, even though we can’t think of a single incident in which college students have actually abused grain alcohol.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 11:45 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Alcohol, There Oughtta Be a Law, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.