Czech Republic bans liquor in bid to curb methanol deaths

[the_gabih]

The Czech Republic has prohibited the sale of hard liquor after 19 people died and dozens were poisoned by methanol-laced bootleg vodka and rum.

The ban, issued by the Health Ministry on Friday, covers the sale of any drink containing more than 20 percent alcohol. The prohibition is temporary, but no indication was given when it might end.

Many Czech

Comments

[corinn]

19 people died and dozens were poisoned by methanol-laced bootleg vodka and rum

If the problem was already with bootleg stuff, won't banning the legit stuff just make more people drink bootleg stuff and thus put more people in danger? Or am I having some logic fail here?

[teacoat]

MTE.

Although maybe what's happening is that the bootleg stuff is getting mixed in with the real stuff?

[sihaya09]

This is what I am wondering.

[the_gabih]

I'm pretty sure the stuff that's likely to cause poisoning like that is already banned, yeah- this whole thing seems kinda redundant. The market stall/street vendor thing might help a little, but from what my Czech teacher tells me, most of the bootleg stuff will probably just get passed from person to person.

[emofordino]

so wait, the alcohol was laced with methanol? isn't all hard liquor ethanol? wouldn't the ethanol bind to the methanol and just be excreted through the urine? i'm no chemist but i could have sworn i learned that somewhere, maybe in my nursing classes or something.

[trivalent]

Ethanol and methanol are two different kinds of alcohol. Methanol is CH3OH. Ethanol is CH3CH2OH. They will both be absorbed into your body... bloodstream, brain, handled by your liver. They're turned into other products, like the carboxylic acid of the same carbon chain length. Those biproducts which come from methanol are a lot more dangerous to the body than those of ethanol (which, for example, we actually have acetic acid in our bodies). Drinking methanol can cause total blindness, if it doesn't kill you.

[cozmic_oceanz]

Eek that's scary! I wonder who did this/why.

[the_physicist]

i'm sure the ban won't continue indefinitely. the question for the small businesses will be how long it takes for the authorities to find out where that fake alcohol is coming from, and then they can also figure out who it got delivered to and seize those fake bottles so they don't get sold.

[poetic_pixie_13]

As someone who's facinated by the prohibition era I can tell you this shit don't work. Generally banning something doesn't make people stop from doing it. They just find other, mote dangerous ways to do it. Plus, everyone wants to be a rebel and when being one involves more fun than conviction... well

I hope the Czech authorities find where this bootleg stuff's coming from before there's a jump in incidents and deaths around fake booze.

[poetic_pixie_13]

Oh, I agree. It was just a knee-jerk comparison. I like history nerding. >.>