New York. The Roaring Twenties. Jazz! But Prohibition is in effect across the country. Yet, people are preparing to welcome 1927 with a glass of champagne. Nobody knows that the government has prepared a deadly gift for them.
Since proper alcohol was unavailable, bootleggers stole industrial alcohol intended for paints and lacquers and attempted to purify it.
The authorities knew about this. And so, the federal government issued a radical order: make the industrial alcohol lethally poisonous to deter people from drinking.
Kerosene, chloroform, and the most deadly substance—methanol—were added to the formula for the industrial alcohol.
The celebration begins. People raise their glasses in speakeasies. By morning, the hospitals of New York are overflowing.
The symptoms are the same for everyone. First, hallucinations, then complete blindness, followed by respiratory paralysis and death. Doctors were horrified. They could do nothing.
The main proponent of Prohibition, Wayne Wheeler, stated: “The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide. The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it.”
In total, over 10,000 Americans died during this Chemists’ War.
