Poison and Prohibition

A little over a week ago, I wrote a story for Slate called The Chemists' War. It was based on information I'd uncovered for my book, The Poisoner's Handbook, and it detailed a forgotten program of the U.S. government to poison alcohol supplies during the 1920s.

The poisoning program was an outgrowth of federal frustration over the failure of Prohibition. Supporters of the 18th Constitutional amendment - which made illegal trade and commerce in potable spirits - had expected it to result in more sober (literally) and upright citizenry. Instead, crime syndicates grew wealthy selling bootleg liquor and American citizen flouted the intention of the amendment in droves. More than 30,000 speakeasies (secret bars) sprang up in New York City from 1920, when the amendment went into effect, until 1933 when it was repealed.

In the mid-1920s, then, federal officials realized that much of the speakeasy alcohol supply was stolen industrial alcohol, redistilled to make it potable. So they required manufacturers to make the product much more poisonous, adding everything from methyl alcohol to cyanide into the the mix. By many estimates more than 10,000 people were killed by this program. The medical examiner of New York City, Dr. Charles Norris, wrote an article about it in a popular magazine, titled "Our Experiment in Extermination."

The program only officially ended with Prohibition itself. Many people have written me since the Slate story appeared to compare the campaign to other government poisoning inititives (such as spraying Paraquat on marijuana crops in the 1970s) or to express shock that this bizarre and homicidal decision by our government has been forgotten.

A reporter from a Spanish newspaper wrote me to say that he alerted his editor to the Slate article and was told that it just couldn't be possible that the U.S. government had behaved so murderously to its own citizens. But it is entirely true.

And that's why I'm writing about it yet again. It shouldn't be forgotten. And we, all of us, should take it as a reminder that a government on a moral crusade (as Prohibition was) can be dangerous to our health.