Well, we can’t have that now, can we?

There’s a new technology out there that vaporizes booze and lets folks inhale it. It is said to create a “zero-carb” and zero-hangover buzz.

The devices are sold on the Internet by a European company called AWOL, which stands for ”alcohol without liquid.” The AWOL machine consists of an oxygen generator that blasts air into a hand-held vaporizer containing the liquor — preferably 80 proof — of your choice. AWOL machines range in size from desk-top variety to industrial-sized pipes for multiple users in a club.

Egads. Such a horrible danger demands immediate legislative attention!

”It’s not something I wanted to see proliferate throughout state. We’re getting ahead of the curve here,” [Florida state representative Bob] Henriquez said. ”I’m no prude. I just see this as a cheap and trendy way” to abuse alcohol.”

Well, heavens, we certainly mustn’t allow people to get drunk in a “cheap and trendy way,” when the old ways are so self-evidently better. Not to mention that the old ways are backed by serious money.

The push for the prohibition is not unique to Florida. Thirteen other states are considering similar legislation — and even Congress is giving it a shot. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States is urging the states to ban AWOL.

Peter Cressy, council president, said its members aren’t threatened by the competition posed by AWOL but worry about abuse, putting him in the difficult position of opposing a hangover-free buzz.

‘This would strongly suggest that the purpose of this device is to get a buzz. We don’t think getting a buzz is a good idea. . . . It gave us grave concern that it was marketed as the `ultimate party tool’ and reducing hangovers,” Cressy said. “Our trade association has long been a leader in fighting abuse of our products.”

The Distilled Spirits Council being, of course, focused on American drinking solely for the aesthetic and gustatory experience, not because people enjoy getting tipsy (a/k/a “abuse”).

Now, I’m certainly not in favor of folks actually abusing alcohol. Kids at college dying from alcohol poisoning, people getting drunk and then getting behind the wheel, etc., are all, no question, bad things. But for the folks who sell (relatively expensive) bottled alcohol protesting that the AWOL system is EVIL AND NEEDS TO BE OUTLAWED because the AWOL system because the apparent intent is intoxication (vs. elegant sipping of a nice single-malt and enjoying its peaty insouciance) strikes me as absurd.

Just as absurd is that there does not appear to be any current crisis. Few, if any, AWOL systems have been distributed as of yet, which not only means that the problems presented are hypothetical, but it makes the driven-by-threat-to-profits nature of the whole exercise all that much more apparent.

I don’t see myself as ever making use of an AWOL (I actually do drink, to at least some degree, because I like the flavor of what I’m drinking, not just to get smashed), but I don’t see banning the AWOL as doing anything to reduce the dangers of Demon Rum, only to reduce the dangers to the bottom line of the Distilled Spirits Council.

(via BoingBoing)