How the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition.

[mp68terr]

Was searching some info about methanol (the toxic wood alcohol, different than ethanol, the drinking alcohol) on wikipedia and came through the following 2010 article about how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences for around 10,000 people. Some of the forumers might know it; it is completely new to me.

 

Link to the article by Deborah Blum on slate.com.

[steven36]

Claim

In 1926, the federal government poisoned alcohol to curb consumption during Prohibition; by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, an estimated 10,000 people had died from this poisoning.

Rating

 

Mixture true and false

What's True

When the manufacture and sale of alcohol was illegal between 1920 and 1933, regulatory agencies encouraged measures making industrial alcohol undrinkable, including the addition of lethal chemicals.

What's False

The government did not poison supplies of alcohol meant for human consumption, nor did it intentionally aim to kill those who drank the tainted products.

 

Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-poison-10000-americans/

 

Truth is  if you drink stuff not meant for human consumption it could have anything in it and is most likely poison !

 

That story is from 2010 you posted and was debunked in 2017.

[vitorio]

This need further clarification since the implications are very serious.

21 minutes ago, steven36 said:When the manufacture and sale of alcohol was illegal between 1920 and 1933, regulatory agencies encouraged measures making industrial alcohol undrinkable, including the addition of lethal chemicals.

In my opinion this is no acceptable. This may kill anyone no matter what are the reasons to do it.

A sad example is

 

Quote

Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam war, a chemical weapon used by US troops is still exacting a hideous toll on each new generation.

 

[steven36]

17 minutes ago, vitorio said:

This need further clarification since the implications are very serious.

In my opinion this is no acceptable. This may kill anyone no matter what are the reasons to do it.

Stuff like this is why they legalize again . Back then people would drink anything .It was not just the regulators who poisoned industrial alcohol the bootleggers who made it from corn ,sugar and rye also poisoned it to make it faster it's what they call rockgut whiskey .   When you buy anything on the black market you take a chance of it being  poisoned and most of the time it is,  still this day heroin is laced with a deadly fentanyl  witch just tiny bit can kill you, plus other dangerous stuff they use cut it.  Also other drugs like meth  and  coke is cut with dangerous stuff as well . You can't change the past , we have to much problems going on today to worry about what happen in  between 1920 and 1933 .. if you was not  breaking the law you would of never got sick and maybe died same still holds true today when you buy stuff on the black market.

 

 

[vitorio]

8 minutes ago, steven36 said:

You can't change the past we have to much problems going on today to worry about what happen in  between 1920 and 1933 if you was not  breaking the law you would never got sick and maybe died same still holds true to day when you buy stuff on the black market.

Just a remainder,  this happened “the other day”:

 

Quote

Agent Orange contains one of the most virulent poisons known to man,

The more we talked about this issues is very important so thy never repeat again.

 

Just my opinion.

[steven36]

7 minutes ago, vitorio said:

Just a remainder,  the “the other day”:

 

The more we talked about this issues is very important so thy never repeat again.

 

Just my opinion.

That's not the same thing  that was nerve gas other places still use stuff way more harmful than that was, if you go to war you most likely going come back sick like people who went to IRAQ  was sick when they came back and they didn't use Agent Orange. They use to use DDT  to kill bugs on food and  that killed people and made them sick .While it was outlawed in the USA other places still use it.

[dMog]

oiginal poster needed to do a hell of a lot more google searches BEFORE HE POSTED..Than k you to steven for pointing this out     According to Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press, 2010), the practice was called “denaturing”. It consisted of adding noxious chemicals to alcohol sold for industrial purposes to make it unfit for human consumption. The process, long used in Europe, was introduced in the United States in 1906 as a means of exempting producers of alcohol used in paints, solvents, and the like from having to pay the taxes levied on potable spirits.

[dMog]

SO.....IT IS A BIG FAT NO.....  the government did NOT  pision alcohol that was  going into the black market for sale to people nor did any bootleger intentionally buy product to kill their customers. As noted the practice began in 1906 not 1prohibition times and was being done in Europe for far longer alreday and not one single drop was put into product intended for human consumption by anyone including any governments anywhered ever at any time

[vitorio]

20 minutes ago, steven36 said:

nerve gas other places still use stuff way more harmful than that was, if you go to war you most likely going come back sick like people who went to IRAQ  was sick when they came back and they didn't use Agent Orange. They use to

 

You are right. I shared your opinion. That is why we should keep taking about this issues, war or not war, as you correctly stated

Quote

use DDT  to kill bugs on food and  that killed people and made them sick .While it was outlawed in the USA other places still use it.

 

[steven36]

21 minutes ago, dMog said:

SO.....IT IS A BIG FAT NO.....  the government did NOT  pision alcohol that was  going into the black market for sale to people nor did any bootleger intentionally buy product to kill their customers. As noted the practice began in 1906 not 1prohibition times and was being done in Europe for far longer alreday and not one single drop was put into product intended for human consumption by anyone including any governments anywhered ever at any time

Yes and no it just depends on who made it.  Some moonshine  was poisoned by the people who made it they used radiators and stuff that  had antifreeze in it to make faster and it would cause people to go blind and lead poising  .

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moonshine&action=edit&section=5

Most of was not made  with industrial alcohol it was made from scratch.

[vitorio]

17 minutes ago, steven36 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moonshine&action=edit&section=5

 

Please check since:

 

Wikipedia does not recognize the action specified by the URL.

 

Thanks.

[steven36]

10 minutes ago, vitorio said:

Please check since:

 

Wikipedia does not recognize the action specified by the URL.

Just use this link  and look for the safety section

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine#Safety

 

Moonshine Poisoning Is Still a Massive, Deadly Problem Worldwide

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgxwk9/moonshine-poisoning-is-still-a-massive-deadly-problem-worldwide

[frankl1n]

The US government is mostly evil, along with most every other govt out there. I don't doubt they poisoned people intentionally to dissuade others from drinking. 

Remember that any govt wants 2 things:

1- control

2- your money

 

no where on this list is your health or welfare.

[Karlston]

Mini-Moderating post hidden.

[humble3d]

The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." 'Absolute power...' is one of the language's best known proverbs.  

 

[funkyy]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:33 AM, frankl1n said:

The US government is evil, along with every other govt out there. I don't doubt they poisoned people intentionally to dissuade others from drinking. 

Remember that any govt wants 2 things:

1- control

2- your money

 

no where on this list is your health or welfare.

I think you can't make such a blanket statement as "the US government is evil". There have always been and always will be self serving politicians all over the world whose only desire is simply to have more power and more wealth...serving the people doesn't even come into it, that's just a necessary cover for their actions. Unfortunately those guys' misuse of power is what causes conflicts and misery for the rest of us.

[frankl1n]

12 hours ago, funkyy said:

I think you can't make such a blanket statement as "the US government is evil". There have always been and always will be self serving politicians all over the world whose only desire is simply to have more power and more wealth...serving the people doesn't even come into it, that's just a necessary cover for their actions. Unfortunately those guys' misuse of power is what causes conflicts and misery for the rest of us.

@funkyy I dont want to stray off-topic here but I also wanted to acknowledge you.

I think I mostly agree with you, sad that governments are not mostly made up of good people, but instead are mostly made up of these self-serving bastards that you mentioned. Very very sad for folks like us.

 

@funkyyI have edited my post above to reflect my agreement with your post above. :)

[dMog]

Spoiler

 

Moonshine was NOT  deliberatly poisioned, it done by dumbass idiots who did not know better that if it was not made correctly it would kill people...and I might add that STILL takes place today some people still go blind from drinking wrongly made moonshine and even a few deaths ocour to this day

 

ON a side note on average 2 people a year die form the PLAGUE  in north america ...not becasue there is no cure but becasue by the time Doctors figure  out what is going on it is too late to save the live....this is becasue new world docltors never see plague so as stated by the time they properly diagnose it may be too late

[steven36]

1 hour ago, dMog said:

  Hide contents

 

Moonshine was deliberatly poisioned, it done by dumbass idiots who did not know better that if it was not made correctly it would kill people...and I might add that STILL takes place today some people still go blind from drinking wrongly made moonshine and even a few deaths ocour to this day

 

ON a side note on average 2 people a year die form the PLAGUE  in north america ...not becasue there is no cure but becasue by the time Doctors figure  out what is going on it is too late to save the live....this is becasue new world docltors never see plague so as stated by the time they properly diagnose it may be too late

I was poisoned from it before years ago . lucky for me i did not go blind but it made me  were i could not wake up and kept having vivid dreams (Hypnagogia) . Were i'm from they still make bootleg  around here out all the times i tried  it i only got poisoned once because most moonshiners take pride in there work.  Making it was brought over here from the British so its heritage.

 

 

[dMog]

I know people here that make it  and where my GRANDMA  lived when she was still allive her neibors made it. This was back in the early 1970's and when the police showed up to nicely ask them to stop or they would have to arrest the entire family, well the familt shot a homemade cannon at them when the police entered the farm yard.... needless to say the poop hit the fan on that one.the end result was a show of force by the police and beleive it or not no arrests but the till was destroyed and the family had to promise never sell the moonshine again but they could make it if they really wanted to...just not sell it, and the homemade cannon was destroyed too.... I  imagine if that happened today the swat teams would have been sent in and it would have ended bad

[humble3d]

Blanket statements are indeed painting with a very broad brush...

While Democracy looks good on paper, it IS people who make the difference...

 

 

It's Too bad so many so called leaders suffer from dementia,  inter alia...