Monday, February 22, 2010

Government Prohibition Killings

"It was Christmas Eve 1926...Before hospital staff realized how sick he was — the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom — the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season....The deaths, as investigators would shortly realize, came courtesy of the U.S. government."


Slate has an amazing write up on the now-forgotten "Chemist's War on Prohibition" written by Deborah Blum who found out about this war while researching for her book The Poisoner's Handbook. The article is pretty interesting and makes you worry a bit as to the lengths our government will go.

(From Slate)

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