[Lee Stewart]

You’ve likely heard about how crazy some of the law enforcement of prohibition laws could be, but it turns out the U.S. government literally poisoned alcohol in its effort to discourage drinking. When people continued to consume alcohol despite its banning, law officials got frustrated and decided to try a different kind of deterrent: death. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the U.S., which were products regularly stolen bootleggers. By the end of Prohibition in 1933, the federal poisoning program is estimated to have killed at least 10,000 people.