

U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition, with deadly consequences - yummyfajitas
http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/pagenum/all/

======
idlewords
Something similar is in place now with medications containing codeine
derivatives (such as Percocet). In the US, they invariably contain a high dose
of acetaminophen, specifically included to deter abuse. This guarantees that
anyone trying to take a large recreational dose of painkillers is risking
liver failure.

It looks like the FDA may have finally decided this is a terrible idea:
[http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/acetaminophen.fda.heari...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/acetaminophen.fda.hearing/index.html)

~~~
mike_organon
That linked article does not say acetaminophen is an intentional poison, but
that its is an active drug that now appears to have side effects, and they
also want to remove it from medicines where it is the primary ingredient.

~~~
idlewords
"Analgesic nephropathy is the direct result of the DEA's deliberate policy of
using APAP as a denaturation agent for narcotics, in the same way methanol was
used to denature ethanol that wasn't meant to be drunk"

<http://yarchive.net/med/anti_inflammatories.html>

~~~
cynicalkane
IANAD (am not a doctor), but codeine is allegedly more effective at smaller
doses when paired with other painkillers. Smaller doses = less potential to
develop an abusive dependency.

It's fun to see sinister intentions in government policies, and maybe they are
sinister, I don't know. But there's nothing sinister about arranging things so
that significantly less dangerous are more widely available to the public than
are doses of straight codeine. That some druggies destroy their livers with
Vikes/Percocet is tragic, but it's strange that the usually libertarian-
leaning Hacker News would be so opposed to making good painkillers available
by prescription. There is something nanny-state-ish about removing a
relatively safe painkiller from the market because of what abusers might do
with it.

Also, the doctor you quoted seems rather paranoid...

~~~
mike_organon
Thanks for the link, idlewords. Cynicalkane, who on this thread said codeine
should be removed from the market? I inferred from the articles that
acetaminophen and "poisons" should be removed from codeine, so people who need
the painkiller aren't paying a cost with their livers because others might
abuse the drug. The first nanny state move was limiting access to codeine and
the sinister move was adding poison (assuming it's all true).

~~~
idlewords
Based on the same yarchive link I cited, the risk seems to be twofold - acute
damage to liver or kidneys by recreational users who takes too many pills at
once (and don't know enough to separate out the acetaminophen with cold
water), as well as chronic kidney damage in people who are legitimately taking
the drug for prolonged periods of time.

I should stress that there aren't any additional 'poisons' added to opiate
drugs. Rather, it's the toxic effects of acetaminophen at high doses that are
being exploited in a misguided attempt to deter abuse.

------
yannis
Additives are still added to make alcohol poisonous and unpalatable, in
addition in many countries a coloring is added. Traditionally, the main
additive is 10% methanol, giving rise to the term methylated spirit. See also
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol>

The article was sensational in 1926 and probably still is.

~~~
Confusion
Usually it's the other way around: unpalatable additives are added to already
poisonous substances, to prevent them from being consumed. The usual example
is cleaning alcohol: it already contains methanol (because it is cheaper than
ethanol and because it has different properties, which makes for better
cleaning alcohol) and the coloring, smelling and vomit-reflex-inducing
substances are added to prevent poor, ignorant slobs from going blind and
paralysed (and eventually dead) by drinking it.

~~~
yannis
Not really! see (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol>). Since
normal alcohol (ethanol) is highly taxed ( _sin tax_ ), additives are added to
stop people from using it other than for industrial or medical use or even to
make it difficult to distill again, hence they add methanol and the additives.
The tax man has protected himself very carefully :)

~~~
goodside
Yes, really. Pure ethanol is more expensive than methylated alcohol (which has
both ethanol and methanol) even before taxes are applied. Denaturing existing
pure ethanol with methanol is wasteful, as the constituants are more valuable
separated. In Poland, alcohol is by law denatured only with safe, taste-
altering substances, and so their denatured alcohol is more expensive than in
other countries because industrial manufacturers have to produce the stuff
methanol-free.

~~~
yannis
Please read the customs regulations for the uk
[http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPort...](http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD1_024321&propertyType=document)
, as the US is a couple of volumes thick!

Quoting:

 _Excise duty is not charged on spirits used for industrial or scientific
purposes, so long as it has been contaminated ('denatured') to make it
undrinkable. At present the relief is managed through the Methylated Spirits
Regulations 1987 (MSR), which require spirits purchased for non-drinkable uses
to be made unsuitable for drinking prior to delivery to the end user. MSR
allows for 3 different formulations of denatured spirits._

The spirits are only contaminated to ensure that they are not used for human
consumption and thus avoid tax. They do not offer any advantages (actually
fumes from methanol are toxic).

------
tedunangst
Original title is more informative and less sensational: The little-told story
of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly
consequences.

~~~
yummyfajitas
From the HN submit page:

 _Please make title < 80 characters._

~~~
pvg
"U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences"
(76 chars)

Is still much better than making stuff up. The government did not 'poison
lawbreakers without trial'. It makes it sound like they took someone in
custody and fed them poison.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You are right, your proposed title would have been better.

But I disagree that my title was "making stuff up". The government did indeed
poison lawbreakers without a trial, it just did not do so in the specific
manner you describe.

~~~
amalcon
The problem with saying that they "poisoned people without a trial" is much
the same as the problem with saying that a police officer who shot a suspect
brandishing a gun "shot the suspect without a trial." It's technically true,
but it puts a totally unnecessary spin on the events, as a trial is neither
expected nor required.

~~~
natrius
A trial is expected and required for allegedly consuming illegal substances.

~~~
amalcon
A trial is required to _execute someone_ (or imprison them, but I don't think
anyone's talking about imprisoning anyone here) for allegedly consuming
illegal substances (just like it is for anything else, including brandishing a
weapon). The police officer is not executing the weapon-brandishing subject,
he's defending himself and the public. Death is a likely consequence here, but
it's not an execution. Likewise, the government wasn't executing people for
drinking alcohol; they were making death a likely consequence of drinking
alcohol, but they were not performing executions.

~~~
anamax
> Likewise, the government wasn't executing people for drinking alcohol; they
> were making death a likely consequence of drinking alcohol, but they were
> not performing executions.

It all depends on what you think is important, life or what the death
certificate says.

If I engage in an act likely to result in someone's death, I'my guilty of
manslaughter (or murder) except in certain circumstances. That's true whether
or not I'm ever brought up on charges.

~~~
fexl
Right, you'd be guilty of murder. It wouldn't matter if anyone caught you, or
whether you targeted specific individuals or random ones. For example, I'm old
enough to remember the Tylenol murders of 1982:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders>

In that case, the murderer was never positively identified.

------
barnaby
Now that I'm reading "People's history of the United States" by Howard Zinn,
I'm not surprised by anything anymore. I guess all governments do this kind of
stuff (and worse) on a routine basis.

~~~
ams6110
I'm not familiar with that work, but I was also going to say this is an
illustration of how you can never really trust governments to always do the
right thing.

------
akamaka
This is pretty terrible journalism. It discusses deaths from people drinking
denatured alcohol when it was first introduced in 1920s prohibition USA, but
doesn't provide any context.

Denatured alcohol is still widely sold today, without any controvresy. It has
poisonous additives, but is cheaper because it's not taxed.

There's a genuine public health issue here, which the article also ignores.
Drinking is a massive problem in some parts of the world where alcohol is
poorly controlled. Half of all premature deaths of working age Russian men are
due to alcohol consumption. And while many of those come from drinking
poisonous alcohols, the majority are from plain old vodka.

~~~
wooster
"Half of all premature deaths of working age Russian men are due to alcohol
consumption."

Color me skeptical on that. The average life expectancy of Russian males in
2008 was 61.83, whereas the retirement age in Russia is 60. I can't find
statistics on working age males specifically, but the general breakdown of
causes of death among Russians as a population suggests that cardiovascular
disease and cancer (which could include conditions caused by alcohol
consumption) would swamp deaths caused by alcohol consumption itself:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Health>

I'd be genuinely curious to see any stats you have contradicting that
analysis, however.

~~~
jasonkester
Have you ever been to Russia?

Walk the streets of Moscow at 7am, and you'll see businessmen on their way to
work, halfway through their first bottle of vodka. It's hard to believe if you
don't see it, but a significant fraction of the people there are drunk or
drinking _all the time_.

So no, even though I haven't seen any hard numbers, I don't have any problem
believing the grandparent's claim.

~~~
wooster
Yes, that's certainly fine anecdotal evidence, and I'm well aware of the
"drunken Russian" stereotype, but I'm looking for hard numbers.

For example, alcohol consumption per capita (among those 15 years and older)
in Russia is less than Spain, the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria,
Portugal, Ireland, Nigeria, etc:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption)

------
tungstenfurnace
The war on vice is properly regarded as a _private_ war fought within each
individual.

------
byrneseyeview
(1926)

------
maurycy
Were they lawbreakers if there was no trial? I'd say that you're innocent
unless proven guilty.

~~~
byrneseyeview
That's the difference between the legal concept and the regular one. You're a
lawbreaker when you break the law; you're guilty when a court procedure
agrees.

~~~
maurycy
I'd say that there's no difference between the legal concept and the regular
one.

I don't know how in the US, but in Europe it is illegal to write publicly "Joe
Average, a murderer", if the person had no trial, yet. Regardless of the
widely available proofs.

After the fact - once the jury decided you are innocent - it is extremely hard
to get your good name back.

~~~
ErrantX
> I don't know how in the US, but in Europe it is illegal to write publicly
> "Joe Average, a murderer", if the person had no trial, yet. Regardless of
> the widely available proofs.

Nope. The beauty of free speech is that it's only illegal if it's either
untrue or you cant prove it (which are in essence the same thing in the eyes
of the law) :)

------
vegas
Here's the obit for the chuck norris that was:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1965874/pdf/bull...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1965874/pdf/bullnyacadmed00874-0061.pdf)

------
JshWright
"As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical
examiner of New York City..."

Is there anything Chuck Norris _can't_ do?

