I know it’s incredibly unfair of me, but I don’t normally think of Nebraska as having more common sense than my own liberal state, but the proof is right there in a decision handed down today by the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Of course, my only experience in Nebraska was driving through it on a cross-country trip over twenty-five years ago, but it’s clear to me I have to rethink my left coast bias.
The neo-prohibitionist group Project Extra Mile had petitioned the state to reclassify alcopops as spirits in an effort to raise the taxes on them 1200%. California did the same thing earlier this year, though they were successful in lying to our state Congress and misleading them into believing that there is any appreciable amount of spirits in alcopops. They are now, and always have been, malt-based beverages and properly considered a part of the beer family. Any other story is pure propaganda. That’s the way the federal government classifies them, and that’s who Nebraska cited in refusing to bow to the neo-prohibitionist group’s demands to reclassify them in their ruling released today.
Congratulations to reason. Score one for common sense.