# Did prohibition officials poison drinkers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378 "2025-07-02T00:20:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/41 "2025-07-17T02:56:07Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > About the only reason to drink it is that it’s cheap– otherwise you could just pay for the legal stuff and get better product. There is also the frisson on doing something illegal. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > someone could have taken him seriously. I always take you seriously. In this case, we simply dont agree. I saw the three epi Burns “Prohibition” and read about Wheeler, a total religious fanatic, and truly evil person. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/42 "2025-07-17T03:35:08Z")
I was referring sardonically to Lumpy. I don’t disagree with you as much as I’m saying that history is more complicated than simple outrage can convey. Outrage at history is fine - I can find plenty of history to be outraged by. This particular case is perhaps more nuanced than many, even if a particularly vile man is at its center. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/43 "2025-07-17T19:33:42Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I don’t disagree with you as much as I’m saying that history is more complicated than simple outrage can convey I cant argue with that. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/44 "2025-07-20T19:32:42Z")
For some perspective: “Tainted” booze, from whatever source, is estimated to have killed about 1,000 Americans each year during Prohibition, out of a (1930) population of 122 million. Currently, deaths caused by alcohol consumption in the U.S. amount to 178,000 a year out of a population of 340 million (CDC figures). You can do the math. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/45 "2025-07-20T21:02:04Z")
Are those figures comparable? By “tainted” booze I presume that meant adulterated or flat-out poisonous alcohol, whereas “alcohol consumption” could mean over-dosing, medical complications like liver failure, or other secondary causes. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/46 "2025-07-20T21:10:11Z")
The point is that properly manufactured booze kills a hell of a lot more people these days than moonshine and adulterated alcohol did during Prohibition. And whatever the death rate was from “tainted” alcohol before Prohibition, it wasn’t zero. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/47 "2025-07-20T22:26:06Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > For some perspective: > > “Tainted” booze, from whatever source, is estimated to have killed about 1,000 Americans each year during Prohibition, out of a (1930) population of 122 million. > > Currently, deaths caused by alcohol consumption in the U.S. amount to 178,000 a year out of a population of 340 million (CDC figures). > > You can do the math. That math is _extremely_ ethically dubious. Its comparing two completely different things. One is the number of people poisoned directly (and horribly) by a specific alcoholic drink which had poison in it. The other is an estimate of all the death (liver failure, cancer, heart disease, etc.) that may have been caused, directly or indirectly by alcohol. If those things are equivalent it would be morally acceptable to randomly shoot people in MacDonalds drive through lines, as it will discourage people from eating fast food which undoubtedly kills more people in the US than alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/48 "2025-07-20T22:43:19Z")
Well, as long as the alcohol’s pure nowadays, its toll of death and disability can be overlooked. You’ve made me see the light! This is not to say that Prohibition was a good thing. It did at least cut down markedly on drinking, particularly in its early years, and considerable lives were saved as a result. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/49 "2025-07-20T22:49:53Z")
And also let the sulfanilamide disaster of 1937 happen - and all they could get the Massengill corporation on was mislabeling, because their Elixir of Sulfanilamide contained diethylene glycol (antifreeze) and not alcohol, which is the basis of an elixir. > **[The-Sulfanilamide-Disaster.pdf](https://www.fda.gov/files/about%20fda/published/The-Sulfanilamide-Disaster.pdf)** > > 46.87 KB ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/50 "2025-07-20T23:00:00Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > This is not to say that Prohibition was a good thing. It did at least cut down markedly on drinking, particularly in its early years, and considerable lives were saved as a result. Hard to say, for multiple reasons. The chief most being that tracking illegal drinking was notoriously difficult and can only be estimated by proxies. Most statistics on alcohol consumption in the USA showed a sharp drop in (reported) drinking well before 1920. This was probably due to widespread state and county dry laws that Prohibitionists were able to get passed prior to national Prohibition. There was also a World War One federal statute that banned diverting foodstuffs for distillation, supposedly as a rationing measure. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/51 "2025-07-20T23:29:44Z")
You’re correct about the drop in drinking after 1913, but it continued and accelerated into the early years of Prohibition. In that early period, estimates were that alcohol consumption fell to only about 30% of its pre-Prohibition level, recovering after that to 60-70% of consumption prior to Prohibition. > [@](#): > > Death rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply during the latter years of the 1910s, when both the cultural and the legal climate were increasingly inhospitable to drink, and in the early years after National Prohibition went into effect. They rose after that, but generally did not reach the peaks recorded during the period 1900 to 1915. After Repeal, when tax data permit better-founded consumption estimates than we have for the Prohibition Era, per capita annual consumption stood at 1.2 US gallons (4.5 liters), less than half the level of the pre-Prohibition period. > **[Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1470475/)** > > The conventional view that National Prohibition failed rests upon an historically flimsy base. The successful campaign to enact National Prohibition was the fruit of a century-long temperance campaign, experience of which led prohibitionists to ... ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/52 "2025-07-21T00:00:52Z")
It’s a subject of long debate, but some people credit Prohibition with interrupting the “saloon” culture that had made drinking the primary social activity of men. Sometimes also credited was the rise of modern activities that offered alternative forms of entertainment: electrically amplified phonographs, films, radio, etc.. It may have helped that post-Prohibition most jurisdictions did not revert to the wide open sky’s-the-limit vending of alcohol but instead adopted measures to allow for the sale of alcohol while strictly regulating it– hard to gain easy to lose liquor licenses, restricted hours of sale, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/53 "2025-07-21T01:20:47Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It’s a subject of long debate, but some people credit Prohibition with interrupting the “saloon” culture that had made drinking the primary social activity of men. Probably true. But probably also true was that Prohibition allowed “good” women to drink in public for the first time, so that speakeasies catered to men and women and couples, introducing alcoholism into populations where it wasn’t previously a huge problem. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Sometimes also credited was the rise of modern activities that offered alternative forms of entertainment: electrically amplified phonographs, films, radio, etc.. The first two were already growing into enormously popular social activities and radio would have no matter what the alcohol situation was. Nightclubbing was the primary social activity introduced by Prohibition, and that helped introduce jazz and a number of jazz-influenced dances (the Black Bottom, hint, hint) into national awareness. Jazz being a form of “hot” dance music then, not the cool listen-only stuff of post-war bebop. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/54 "2025-07-21T01:26:41Z")
If no one had mentioned it by the time I got to the end of this thread, I was going to. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/55 "2025-07-21T01:48:16Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > the irradiation plan. Was that intended to be “eradication plan”? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/56 "2025-07-21T02:15:26Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It’s a subject of long debate, but some people credit Prohibition with interrupting the “saloon” culture that had made drinking the primary social activity of men. Sometimes also credited was the rise of modern activities that offered alternative forms of entertainment: electrically amplified phonographs, films, radio, etc.. It is also credited with scofflaws, organized crime, and extreme violence in gang wars, and even perhaps making the Depression worse (so many brewery workers were fired due to prohibition). > **[Unintended Consequences | Prohibition | Ken Burns | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences)** > > The story of the rise, rule, and fall of prohibition and the entire era it encompassed. Full film now streaming. _Instead, the unintended consequences proved to be a decline in amusement and entertainment industries across the board. Restaurants failed, as they could no longer make a profit without legal liquor sales. Theater revenues declined rather than increase, and few of the other economic benefits that had been predicted came to pass._ _On the whole, the initial economic effects of Prohibition were largely negative. The closing of breweries, distilleries and saloons led to the elimination of thousands of jobs, and in turn thousands more jobs were eliminated for barrel makers, truckers, waiters, and other related trades._ Sin instead of helping entertainment, it hurt it. _One of the most profound effects of Prohibition was on government tax revenues. Before Prohibition, many states relied heavily on excise taxes in liquor sales to fund their budgets. In New York, almost 75% of the state’s revenue was derived from liquor taxes. With Prohibition in effect, that revenue was immediately lost. At the national level, Prohibition cost the federal government a total of $11 billion in lost tax revenue, while costing over $300 million to enforce. The most lasting consequence was that many states and the federal government would come to rely on income tax revenue to fund their budgets going forward._ Many stayed honest, but enough succumbed to the temptation that the stereotype of the corrupt _Prohibition agent or local cop undermined public trust in law enforcement for the duration of the era._ _The growth of the illegal liquor trade under Prohibition made criminals of millions of Americans. As the decade progressed, court rooms and jails overflowed, and the legal system failed to keep up. Many defendants in prohibition cases waited over a year to be brought to trial. As the backlog of cases increased, the judicial system turned to the “plea bargain” to clear hundreds of cases at a time, making a it common practice in American jurisprudence for the first time._ Police corruption, plea bargaining, and the criminalization of millions of otherwise non criminals. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/57 "2025-07-21T02:19:29Z")
[https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/alcohol-prohibition-was-failure](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/alcohol-prohibition-was-failure) _National prohibition of alcohol (1920–33) — the “noble experiment” — was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts._ > **[Negative Economic Impacts of Prohibition · The Unintended Consequences of...](http://digitalexhibits.wsulibs.wsu.edu/exhibits/show/prohibition-in-the-u-s/negative-economic-impacts-of-p)** _The Beareau of Internal revenue estimated that the prohibiton cause the shutdown of over 200 distilleries, a thousand breweries, and over 170,000 liquor stores.(Funderburg 9) The entertainment industries also experienced a loss in revenue. Movie theatres although expected to increase revenues found themselves losing them, from a result of not being able to sell alcohol. The money brought in through night life also saw a dramatic loss._ ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/58 "2025-07-21T02:29:20Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > > the irradiation plan. > > Was that intended to be “eradication plan”? Yes . ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/59 "2025-07-21T02:29:42Z")
As far as I can tell, the answer to the thread title question is no. The industrial alcohol did not get more poisonous during prohibition. The problem was a small portion of bootleggers selling it as if potable. [Methanol: The Forgotten Killer of Prohibition-Era Alcohol](https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/alcohol-history/prohibition-history-methanol-poisoning-bootlegging-alcohol) > [@](#): > > Denaturing was, in fact, common practice for industrial alcohol in the U.S. [for more than a decade](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-poison-10000-americans/) before the beginning of Prohibition, and had long been the standard for industrial alcohol in Europe. If you’re wondering why it was necessary to make this alcohol impotable and potentially poisonous in the first place, the answer is economics. Simply put, it was part of an agreement between the U.S. government and industrial alcohol manufacturers, who didn’t want to pay the heavy excise taxes on drinkable spirits. In order to prove that their spirits couldn’t possibly be used for those purposes, and make it impossible for industrial distillers to sell their product as drinking liquor, they were required to add noxious chemicals, which eventually included methanol as a deterrent. In exchange, they could avoid paying excise taxes, effectively separating the distilling industry before Prohibition into “drinking alcohol” and “industrial alcohol.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2025, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378/60 "2025-07-27T01:09:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Nightclubbing was the primary social activity introduced by Prohibition, and that helped introduce jazz and a number of jazz-influenced dances (the Black Bottom, hint, hint) into national awareness. Jazz being a form of “hot” dance music then, not the cool listen-only stuff of post-war bebop. Yeah, jazz became a really cool, sober affair after WWII. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GMs4awnZ2pM/hqdefault.jpg "D.O.A. (1950)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMs4awnZ2pM) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-prohibition-officials-poison-drinkers/1020378.md?page=4)