Re:The US government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition (2010)
by nkurz on Sunday September 04, 2016 @03:30PM
(#12426263)
If you're making ethanol as an industrial solvent or fuel, you don't need to do these things.
Your chemistry is solid, but your argument depends on the poisons being a natural fermentation byproduct rather than an federally mandated addition done at extra cost to the producer. In fact, the government increased the required level of methanol with the explicit goal of making it too difficult to remove completely. They did this conscious of the fact that those who drank the improperly purified product would be blinded or killed, and justified this by pointing out that the consumption was illegal.
But whatever, Slate says it was a conspiracy to poison poor people, I'm sure that's the right explanation
Your chemistry is solid, but your argument depends on the poisons being a natural fermentation byproduct rather than an federally mandated addition done at extra cost to the producer. In fact, the government increased the required level of methanol with the explicit goal of making it too difficult to remove completely. They did this conscious of the fact that those who drank the improperly purified product would be blinded or killed, and justified this by pointing out that the consumption was illegal.
But whatever, Slate says it was a conspiracy to poison poor people, I'm sure that's the right explanation
Slate published the article, but the author is extremely well credentialed: Pulitzer Prize, director of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT, author of a recent book on the topic: http://deborahblum.com/Author.html. You can read the introduction to relevant chapter from the book here: https://books.google.com/books?id=O2HqmJtFkDIC&pg=PT76&lpg=P...