Our National Experiment in Extermination?

The well known era of prohibition brought about by the 18th amendment was named The Noble Experiment by President Hoover, but the government also started a less noble initiative during this historic time that for the most part bypassed historic scrutiny.

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people… Although mostly forgotten today, the “chemist’s war of Prohibition” remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was “our national experiment in extermination.” ~ Slate Magazine

Now left out of this story is the fact that those producing stealing and then producing “renatured” alcohol are the true killers here. So is the fact that most knew the risks involved in drinking bootleg whiskey during prohibition (or any era) and drank it despite the danger. I’m not condoning this desperate past action of the federal government caused by passing laws that they had no plan, ability much less the will to enforce, just commenting from a different perspective.

Its interesting history and a good read regardless of how one interprets it… enjoy it and have a safe and sober weekend!