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There’s a special kind of absurdity that takes root in Montgomery this time of year. It flourishes behind closed committee doors, then blossoms into bills that make less sense the longer you stare at them. But this one—this one’s a standout.
In recent days, both the Alabama House Economic Development and Tourism Committee and the Senate Tourism Committee advanced legislation that would allow ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails—single-serve, spirit-based beverages with up to 7 percent alcohol by volume—to be sold in grocery and convenience stores across the state. It’s a push to modernize Alabama’s notoriously arcane alcohol laws, and it’s being praised as a victory for consumer convenience.
But just as lawmakers toast the free market with a canned vodka soda, they’re turning around and outlawing another legal product: hemp.
Both chambers are also moving legislation—HB445 and its Senate counterpart—that would make it illegal for grocery stores and convenience stores to sell hemp-derived products. Not just Delta-8 or THC variants, but even CBD-infused vapes would be outlawed. All such products would be confined to liquor stores and pharmacies—locations that are neither prepared or particularly suited to handle them.
The glare of this hypocrisy is only hidden from those who are willfully blind.
Let’s be clear: Yes, hemp products should be available only to those 21 or older. They should be regulated, taxed and tested to ensure safety and quality. But regulation is not the same as a ban. What lawmakers are proposing isn’t smart oversight—it’s lazy governance. This is not small-government, pro-business Republicanism. This is big-government, anti-business overreach masquerading as a moral crusade. Drop the pretense. This makes as much sense as banning Tylenol while expanding access to tequila.
Lawmakers say they’re concerned about the health risks of hemp-derived cannabinoids. And yet, the Alabama Poison Information Center reports that Delta-8 cases among those under 21 represent less than 0.1 percent of total incidents—hardly the crisis they’re pretending to contain. Meanwhile, we all know alcohol is responsible for thousands of deaths each year from liver disease, addiction, drunk driving and violence.
Still, there’s no moral panic over the tequila in aisle six. No talk of youth access when it comes to canned cocktails sold next to the soda. Just quiet approval and a promise that it’s all about giving people more choices.
So which is it?
You can’t credibly claim that public health is your guiding concern when you promote one intoxicating product while banning another. That’s not policy—it’s performance. And it’s precisely the kind of contradiction that makes people stop believing that our lawmakers are acting in good faith.
Mitch Hungerpiller, CEO of Easy Hemp Company, put it bluntly: “It ought to be beer and wine versus a liquor.” In other words, if you’re going to regulate, at least be consistent. But that’s not what we’re getting. We’re getting a regulation tailor-made to cripple one industry while expanding another—and all under the pretense of protecting the public.
Ana Navarro once said, “Hypocrisy needs to be called out in American politics, and the absurd has reached the point where it is just insufferable.” That line fits Alabama politics like a tailored suit.
What we’re watching unfold is not a serious attempt to regulate. It’s a legislative wink to one set of interests and a slap in the face to another. It’s the illusion of action, where logic and consistency are nowhere to be found. In the process, the state’s small but growing hemp industry is being strangled—cut off from its core customer base, forced into sales channels that don’t want or understand the products, and punished for simply existing alongside something more politically convenient.
If we’re being honest, this isn’t even about hemp anymore. It’s about the way Alabama makes laws: with more regard for optics than outcomes, with more concern for image than integrity.
So let’s stop pretending this is about safety. If it were, the same scrutiny would be applied to those cocktails now getting fast-tracked to your local gas station cooler. Let’s stop pretending this is about moral clarity—because there’s nothing clear about hypocrisy this bold.
Let’s call this what it is: idiocy at a high level, dressed up in legislative procedure.
The people of Alabama deserve policies shaped by reason, fairness and fact—not fear, stigma and contradiction. If lawmakers want to open the doors to alcohol in every convenience store, fine. But don’t turn around and slam the door on hemp while claiming it’s for our own good.
Because the irony isn’t subtle. It’s sitting there, right next to the canned cocktails, waiting to be noticed by anyone who isn’t willfully blind.
