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US Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition
Hugh Pickens writes "Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Deborah Blum has an article in Slate about the US government's mostly forgotten policy in the 1920s and 1930s of poisoning industrial alcohols manufactured in the US to scare people into giving up illicit drinking during Prohibition. Known as the 'chemist's war of Prohibition,' the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, killed at least 10,000 people between 1926 and 1933. The story begins with ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919, which banned sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the US. By the mid-1920s, when the government saw that its 'noble experiment' was in danger of failing, it decided that the problem was that readily available methyl (industrial) alcohol — itself a poison — didn't taste nasty enough. The government put its chemists to work designing ever more unpalatable toxins — adding such chemicals as kerosene, brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. In 1926, in New York City, 1,200 were sickened by poisonous alcohol; 400 died. The following year, deaths climbed to 700. These numbers were repeated in cities around the country as public-health officials nationwide joined in the angry clamor to stop the poisoning program. But an official sense of higher purpose kept it in place, while lawmakers opposed to the plan were accused of being in cahoots with criminals and bootleggers. The chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, one of the poisoning program's most outspoken opponents, liked to call it 'our national experiment in extermination.'"
do the rest of a world a favor and either kill yourself or get some education and find out what a preservative is.
keep your stupidity home.
So what's going to happen to all those "at least we aren't killing our own people" arguments offered in defence of various despicable actions carried out in Iraq by armed forces of the United States?
Yet now days anyone mentioning a "death panel" is mocked...
Are they really that unthinkable considering these sort of events?
Hey, I have an idea. Let's let the government run our health care system!
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
did your mummy tell you all that?
one day you'll grow up and understand that things aren't anything like that in the real, or grown-up, world.
We've got the same war in the UK. I used to use cocaine regularly, then I got caught. I cannot afford to get caught again. Now I use mephedrone, which is way harder on the body, and is way harder to regulate adminstration, and is 100% legal. I know I don't need to use drugs, but I enjoy them, and it's my fucking choice. The law is currently forcing me to use something that has worse side effects, purely because the law hasn't caught up yet. When mephedrone is made illegal (and I have no doubt it will be), I will move on to something else I have little knowledge of.
Banning stuff does not work. There are an estimated 1 million regular cocaine users in the UK, and I wish I was one of them.
Whoa, don't getcher panties in a bunch there fella.
Remember when the article said "the US government's mostly forgotten policy in the 1920s and 1930s of poisoning industrial alcohols manufactured in the US to scare people into giving up illicit drinking during Prohibition."
Well, I got some news for you. After working in a paint factory for 20 years, I can affirm to you. They still poison industrial ethanol so dumbshits won't drink it. This is kind of a no brain story. I'm sure Darwins premise was satisfied when they first began. So what? It just means there weren't as many people pissing in the gene pool to get to where we got to today. If we weren't under such nanny liberal governments, the human race might just survive. As it is everyone is soooo special we have to protect the endangered idiots and look where that attitude is getting us...
1. The present Governments around the world ( If they were businesses they'd be burned and the owners run out of town)
2. Giant Corporations (well they're certainly conducive to mans progress, NOT)
3. Popular Media ( the funnel that the 2 former use to funnel shit into the brains of...
4. The general population, devolved enough to think that the government, big business and the media are their friends
These 4 are mankinds greatest enemies all because of liberal tampering with the gene pool to avoid Darwinistic losses of human life.
The only way we are going to fix anything is to start repealing laws protecting people from their own decisions and quit sticking our noses into our neigbors business as long as he isn't threatening us.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
since when did smoking look "cool"? maybe before 1970. but that was 40 years ago.
since then, smoking doesn't say "cool". it says poor, it says lower class, it says white trash. decidedly uncool.
so, it's not about being "cool". it's about the stimulant effect of the drug. and patches just don't give anywhere near the same effect as smoking. neither do nicotine lozenges or chewing gum. kind of like the difference between a crap instant coffee and a short black espresso, only more so.
vaporisers do give the same hit without the carcinogenic and other toxic by-products of burning. and wowser scumbags had them banned. they like to pretend they give a shit about other people's health. in reality, they're just inflicting their own personal moral beliefs on others.
But it was also Nixon who went to China, established détente with the Soviets, and ended US involvement in Indochina. He was probably the last truly effective US President to have led the country in a generally positive direction.
And you want to condemn him for being too much of a realist?
I always find it funny that people who risk jail time for a drug claim they haven't got a problem. "No sirree, I am not a drunk. Yes I am drinking industrial alcohol laced with rat poison for flavor sold to me by outragous prices and I could go to jail for it, but really, I got it all under control."
It is like watching a pot addict claim that pot is not addictive but boy, do not get between him and his fix. Here is a hint, if you been to jail 2 times and risk getting life if you get caught again and you still smoke for a short high regardless. YOU ARE AN ADDICT!
No, you are not fighting the system. You are not a rebel with a cause. Rebels do something worthwhile. Anon publishing documents people don't want the world to see is worthwhile stuff. Getting high is not. Hell, most drug abusers are very much in favor of control, as long as it suits them. The proof? How many alcohol addicts want a ban on pot? How many pot smokers agree that drink driving is bad but driving while high is okay?
But I got it easy I suppose. I do not have an addictive personality. No, that is not as much a blessing as you might think because it makes it hard to fit in with the rest of the world. I really can't see why you would want to drink industrial alcohol. To me, as I said, the very fact that you want to drink what is a poison, suggests that you got a problem and apparently society at times thinks it needs to protect people against themselves. Frankly, if you see what current drugs are doing in some areas, I can see the logic. You can't tell me the ghettos of this world wouldn't be better if there was no drug trade. Legalize it all? Sure, you could argue that with me, if your eyes weren't the size of saucers and you weren't twitching because you haven't had your fix yet.
But really, is this story so shocking to people? Don't you have "spiritus" in the US? A cleaning alcohol laced with poison to stop people from drinking it?
For those who want to discuss freedom in a democracy. Grow up. Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority voting group. There is no freedom when you got more then 1 person. Never can be. All you can do is make a large portion of the people not run into to many restrictions during their life. I am free? Fine, so I can piss on your carpet can I? Thought so.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm sure some communists say the same thing about Russia and China, but they are wrong too.
Actions define words like volunteer, murderer, etc. Status defines words like leader, stewardess, etc. Beliefs define stuff people believe.
Christian believe simply that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, period. All those people voting against torturing Spanish jews into conversion or voting against gay marriage did so out of beliefs affiliated with their belief in Jesus. Pretty cut & dry.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If people acquire power based upon their beliefs, like the Pope, Rick Santorum, or George Bush v2, then their actions speak volumes about the belief system granting that power.
Christianity has been violent, cruel, deceptive, selfish, and manipulative throughout the majority of the previous 2000 years (see Holy Roman Empire, Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, indulgences, etc.).
Yes, you may obviously read the original texts inspired by Jesus' life yourself, well see Protestantism. You know however that most people who pursue that are still voting for evil politicians, against gay marriage, etc.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell