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Judging from the dominant response to the current North American opioid situation—increased restrictions placed on the legal availability of these drugs—little has been learned from the alcohol-prohibition experience. As had occurred during the prohibition era, loads of people still consume so-called banned drugs, including opioids, cocaine, and psychedelics. Many of these people are forced to obtain their drugs of choice from illicit, unregulated markets, where there aren’t any quality controls. Thus, just as during Prohibition, thousands of people have died from ingesting drugs contaminated with poisons, impurities, and other unknown substances. Alcohol tainted with large amounts of methanol killed thousands of drinkers and left many others blind during Prohibition. As Deborah Blum masterfully explains in her authoritative work, The Poisoner’s Handbook, the U.S. government callously caused many of these deaths.3 Even before Prohibition, as early as 1906, federal officials required producers of industrial alcohol—used in antiseptics, medicines, and solvents—to add methanol and other chemicals to their batches so their products would be undrinkable. This policy was implemented to deal with manufacturers who sought to avoid paying taxes on potable alcohol. The Prohibition era brought with it sophisticated traffickers who obtained industrial alcohol, redistilled it to be quaffable, and sold it to the public and speakeasies. Government authorities were not pleased. Alcohol had been banned, but people continued to imbibe. By the mid 1920s, the feds were fed up. They ordered industrial alcohol makers to add even more methanol—up to 10 percent—to their products, which proved to be particularly lethal. Illicit dealers were caught off guard, and redistilling industrial alcohol required much more effort. Most individuals, certainly most drinkers, were unaware of these developments. People continued to drink, and the alcohol-poisoning death toll continued to climb. By the time Prohibition ended, hundreds of thousands of people had been maimed or killed due to drinking tainted alcohol. An estimated ten thousand of these individuals died as a result of the government alcohol-poisoning program. Neither accumulating deaths nor public outcry compelled the government to change its deadly alcohol-poisoning policy. This war-on-alcohol tactic remained in effect until Prohibition was repealed.
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Carl L. Hart (Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear)