http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021065549Oh my.
cthulu2016 (3,531 posts)
Prohibition
Prohibition led to an expansion of organized crime, but that was far from the 18th Amendment's only accomplishment.
First, a quirky one... As of 1920 there was interest in ethanol powered cars. The model-T could be converted to ethanol. Prohibition made production of pure ethanol illegal, putting an end to whatever interest there had been in ethanol motoring.
Alcoholl consymption decreased but the rate of death from alcohol went up. Sharply. Prudential reported that their insured alcohol deaths went up 500% from 1920-1928. Deaths from alcohol poisoning deaths (acute) and also from long-term alcoholism almost doubled in New York.
Most bootleg liquor was not smuggled from Canada or made in backwoods stills. It was distilled from the types of alcohol that were legal to make, which were all deadly poison. Almost all bootleg liquor contained wood alcohol. The question was how much.
The government required that industries using ethyl alcohol put enough poisonous ingredients in it to make it useless for drinking. Bootleggers tried to distill the poisons back out. It was never a perfect process. The idea was to get the poison level low enough that the drinker wouldn't die or go blind right away.
But every almost consumer of bootleg liquor was poisoned progressively some degree. (In excess of the effects of ethyl alcohol, which is also poisonous, but much less so.)
Who suffered the most? You know the answer to that, of course. The Poor. The stuff sold in poor neighborhoods was shocking. Sometimes it would just be wood alcohol and water. Wood alcohol tastes enough like the real thing and it does inebriate you fast, so you don't know until you go blind or your legs stop working. (There were slang terms and blues songs about the distinctive walk of the semi-paralyzed. "Jake leg" from Jamaica Ginger, an inexpensive faux liquor. Cleveland initially thought they had a polio epidemic when bootleg liquor hit.)
Anyway, 1926-1927 the federal government became very frustrated with the seeming failure of its moral crusade and did the obvious moral thing to do... they mandated higher levels of poison in industrial alcohol (benzene, acetone, more methanol, etc.,), so that it would be almost impossible to distill it to a safe level. Teach these drunks a thing or two.
The blindness and paralysis and insanity and coma and sudden death and long term liver damage and acute internal bleeding increased as a result. And when you think about it, that was the intention of the policy. Just breaking a few eggs to make the omelet of a brighter tomorrow.
Some editorial writers said the federal government was guilty of manslaughter. Others said that if the drunks hadn't gotten the message they deserved a more forceful message.
It is said that alcohol consumption was cut in half during prohibition. That makes sense. But I don't know what cut in half means. (Human consumption of wood alcohol went up about a million percent, of course.) The dosing levels of regular ethyl alcohol were much higher. There is no percentage in smuggling water. Bootleg liquor was strong... from 120 proof up to almost 200 (100% alcohol).
Moderate consumption almost disappeared because there was no "strong" beer or wine. If you drank you were drinking the hard stuff without a reliable idea of its strength. (A lot of our famous cocktails were devised to make the crummy hooch palatable... a lot of fizzes and sours and anything else to cover the taste.)
So I don't know exactly what cut in half means. There was a polarizing effect. Eliminate moderate drinking, but exacerbate problem drinking.
(Just some thoughts and take-aways from reading "The Poisoner's Handbook.")
And then this, eleven hours later:
cthulu2016 (3,531 posts)
1. .
By the way, if guns are outlawed, like alcohol was during the 1920s, it'll make Prohibition look like a success.
The primitives should shove that up their rectal apertures and smoke it.
