“This sounds like a very very very bad idea”
No, the biased and alarmist reporting is a bad idea. This product though is a great idea.
Do you know what a godsend this is to backpackers? Easier to back than bottles or flasks, little if any waste to destroy or carry out, significantly lower weight - just filter some water. Even the ultralight crowd can get behind this innovation. Hell, they just need to work up some powdered coca-cola now and you can have a backpacker’s rum&coke a week into a PCT or AT hike.
As far as kids buying it and using it, there’s as much danger of that as them buying beer or everclear. I can’t conceive of this encouraging any significantly greater underage alcohol use or abuse, and given the significantly higher cost per ounce for cyclodextrin-encased alcohol I can’t see teenagers wasting money on this when they could get a cheap bottle of vodka instead.
As far as public intoxication and the like, seems like it would be a lot less surreptitious than the old standby of filling up a camelbak with everclear and lemonade before the ball game, or mixing something in a styrofoam cup from a fast-food joint before taking a walk.
In short, it’s likely to be an expensive boutique product for a very small subset of customers. It won’t significantly influence alcohol abuse or public intoxication. It will however make a hard day’s hike in rough country a little more enjoyable.
But only for the wimps who need a liquid crutch to enjoy the great outdoors...
The issue with kids will be them sneaking this stuff into high school, especially if there's no major smell like there would be with vodka or rum.
It's the same reason why I saw a lot more "bear" aka Kodiak chew than I saw Malboros smoked on school grounds back in the day.
“Do you know what a godsend this is to backpackers?” A small Platypus sack is all you need, and it is much less expensive and holds more alcohol, since you are not packing around cyclodextrine.
For a long haul I might put Everclear or 151 rum in the Platypus, for weight efficiency naturally.