The US Once Poisoned Alcohol Supplies

Detroit police inspecting clandestine brewery

Looking around the internet today it became apparent that in an effort to scare people away from drinking alcohol, the US government during Prohibition poisoned certain alcohol supplies. Their action resulted in the death of over 10,000 citizens. The choice to poison the alcohol came about because the government became frustrated with the fact that despite the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol being banned, the number of people drinking alcoholic drinks rose higher than it was before Prohibition. The morve was designed to try and scare people to stop drinking.

After the first 100 or so people died, health officials were outraged and as the government had hoped the news hit the headlines. Unfortunately, the government’s plan didn’t quite work, instead of scaring people away from drinking it had little to no effect on peopledrinking alcohol, the estimates are that it resulted in the deaths of over 10,000 people with a much larger number severely sickened and many blinded by the poisoning.from that point on.


Image from wikipedia

There are a lot more details about this story if you visit this site gizmodo.com.au