And that’s the ballgame, kids.Word has just come down (via the Daily Weekly and, well, pretty much everywhere else, too) that Four Loko, the alcoholic energy drink that recently made headlines by sending nine Central Washington University students to the hospital, is now officially banned in the state of Washington. Which means that you’ve now got until November 18 (the day the ban takes effect) to stockpile as much of the stuff as you possibly can. And don’t worry if you don’t have enough fridge space at your home/frat house/tree fort/alcohol treatment center. As we all well know, anything blue raspberry flavored will last forever in any environment because ain’t nothing in there even remotely organic or spoilable.This was the state of things early this morning, as detailed over at the Daily Weekly:”On Friday last week, Michigan became the first state after Utah to ban the drinks (Utah doesn’t count because it’s less of a state than a large church congregation).Now the state that provided the weak-livered students who started the drinks’ demise will get its chance to puts its laws where its nanny fingers are and ban them once and for all.The Seattle Times is reporting that the Board is all but certain to authorize the ban.”And by noon, that was precisely what had happened. In what was being called “an emergency ban” (because nothing is cooler than an emergency!), the state Liquor Control Board voted to remove all alcoholic energy drinks from store shelves within a week, making a change to the state’s Administrative Code which stated: “no product that combines beer, strong beer, or malt liquor with caffeine, guarana, taurine, or other similar substances which are commonly referred to as “alcohol energy drinks” may be imported into the state, produced, manufactured, distributed, sold or offered for sale by a licensed retailer.”But hey, it’s not all bad. You know what’s not covered there? Vodka and Red Bull. Or whiskey laced with cobra adrenaline. Or gin and Robitussin (called a “Robo-G,” in case you’re curious) for getting down off all that wakey-juice when it’s time for bed.As a matter of fact, there are still plenty of ways in which an enterprising young person might get fucked up without violating either the letter or the spirit of the new rule. Sweetening your morning coffee with Kahlua and Adderal, for example. Or perhaps brewing that after-dinner espresso with Everclear instead of water (which, just so you know, is called a “Fogcutter”). In any event, what will be required of our youth now is a return to the days of craft cocktailing (which is all the rage anyway), to getting both drunk and awake at the same time the way they used to before the advent of conveniences like Blackout In A Can. It’s time to do things like our great grandpappies did, by mixing moonshine and crystal meth or just sucking our taurine straight out of bull’s testicles and chasing it with a shooter of agave consomme.And I, like the state Liquor Control Board and Governor Christine Gregoire, believe that it’s about damn time.