"Health & Medical News"

More drinkers — especially women — are sipping ros?© wine rather than swilling alcopops, Reuters reported June 20.

In Great Britain, demand for ros?© — fermented from skinless red grapes — has risen between 30 and 40 percent in recent years, and experts see demand rising in the U.S. and Canada, as well. “The girls who were drinking Bacardi Breezer and Smirnoff Ice have matured,” said Paul Waller of Carlsberg UK. “People are trying different things. Consumers have got more sophisticated.”

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The fight to determine whether so-called “alcopops” should be classified as beer or liquor in California sometimes smacked of regulatory arcana, but the issue nonetheless spiked the passions of youth leaders in the state.

Alcohol-policy groups and leaders involved in the successful campaign to get the California Board of Equalization (BOE) to change the classification of products like Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s Hard Lemonade from beer to liquor — thus increasing both regulatory restrictions and taxation — said that youth leaders were critical to the success of the Alcopops and Youth Coalition in forcing regulatory changes. The coalition is comprised of youths, law-enforcement officers, public-health researchers, treatment providers, and others. Most of the youth leaders were high-school students ages 16 to 18.

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