When the US Government Decided to Poison Booze
The diversion of industrial alcohol to booze got under the skins of some zealots in the US Treasury Department, responsible for the enforcement of Prohibition. So they decided to doctor the industrial alcohol supply with dangerous substances such as methanol. At least 10,000 people died as a result, and many more were blinded or suffered other serious injuries. Despite Prohibition, America saw a rise in the consumption of alcohol in the mid-1920s. The law was openly flouted, with too many speakeasies to count let alone raid.
They were supplied by bootleggers who acted with impunity and near open defiance of law enforcement. So the federal government decided to go after a key source of the illegal booze: the still legal industrial alcohol stocks. In its industrial form, such alcohol is undrinkable. However, bootleggers figured out ways to make it fit for human consumption. Thus, in 1926, the federal authorities mandated that the amount of harmful chemicals in industrial alcohol be greatly increased. As seen below, the results were immediate – and tragic.