US Government poison’s alcohol

I am a student of and big fan of history, but Slate has a interesting story up about a part of US history I knew nothing about. During prohibition the US government had a program designed to taint industrial alcohol where it was lethal if consumed. This was designed to both discourage illegal drinking via the fear of death and also to make it harder for bootleggers to convert the industrial alcohol to “bathtub gin” and alike. Apparently, this program / policy lead to many people dying due to alcohol poisoning when the industrial alcohol was directly consumed or not properly “natured” via reverse chemistry. This is a very interesting story and I encourage everyone to give it a read and learn something about US history that few remember / know about today.

Tagged as: alcohol, alcohol poisoning, bath tub gin, central government, death, denatured, distilled, government program, industrial alcohol, natured, people dying due to government program, poison, prohibition, reverse chemistry, us government, us history