The US government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition (2010)

Post by wildmusings » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

schrodinger wrote: post #33

wildmusings wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely over-prescribed, especially by "pain clinics" that hand them out like candy. But in contrast, pain clinics handing out vicodin prescriptions like candy would be a much less serious issue because the acetaminophen limits the abuse potential.

It only limits the abuse potential long term—an addict will still abuse the stuff, they'll just ruin their liver in the process. I could see if it was mixed it with something that made you harmlessly sick in larger quantities. But acetaminophen won't give you the negative consequences until much later when your liver is damaged.

Post by mgleason_3 » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

hyperpape wrote: post #48

megous wrote: post #42

OTOH, governments sure love alcohol. Consumption and VAT tax adds to 50% on hard alcohol. There's a lot of profit to be made. Gov makes many times more than the actual producer. Denaturation is just a way of pleasing industrial users, while keeping the exorbiant profits from drinkers. If they could, they would tax the industrial users too. It's a blood money because of artificially increased incetives for unsafe prod…

The thing is, alcohol taxes are too low. There are huge social costs of alcohol use and alcoholism, ranging from direct health risks, to drunk driving and assault. The taxes on alcohol (unlike the taxes on cigarettes) do not even come close to matching the social costs of alcohol. For references, look at Mark Kleiman's work. So no, the taxes are not blood money, though I suspect adding methyl alcohol to industrial al…

Post by charlesism » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

pasbesoin wrote: post #61

We need to decrease focus on "the U.S. government" in such history and reporting. " People poisoned alcohol during prohibition." Once you get to that point, you realize that the lessons of history apply all around you. Basically, people are still people. And what happened before, is bound -- history demonstrates, very likely to -- happen again. You learn to view everything with a critical eye. I guess I can't avoid t…

Post by loeg » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

azeotropic wrote: post #60

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotropic_distillation You can't distill ethanol to 100%, only 95%. To get the last 5% of water out you typically add benzene or cyclohexane, which remains as a trace contaminant in the final product. Also note that methanol (and other unsavory small molecules) normally contaminate distilled ethanol unless you actively take steps to remove them. For something you intend to drink, you…

Post by TelmoMenezes » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #59

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the entity deciding to lace certain drugs with another drug designed to harm a class of users, and deciding to not lace certain other drugs, is the same entity that runs the legal Oxy cartel. Surely it's not possible to believe that part of their actions in this regard are motivated by any sort of social concern. Or am I missing something? PS: this, of course, not getting into the obvious immorality of lacing a d…

> PS: this, of course, not getting into the obvious immorality of lacing a drug to harm addicts. Only a mentally sick society could think otherwise in 2016. It's not to harm addicts. It's to discourage recreational use in the first place. If you're prescribed Vicodin and are warned about the harmful effects of taking more than the prescribed amount, you are less likely to act on the "what the hell, might as well pop…