Illegal banana gin 'kills 80' in Uganda

Huaca

Huaca

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Illegal banana gin 'kills 80' in Uganda
BBC News
Friday, 23 April 2010

Some 80 people have died in Uganda after drinking illegal home-made banana gin laced with methanol, a health official says.

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Patrick Tusiime said so many people had died because relatives did not want to admit that people had been drinking the gin, known as waragi.

The deaths have occurred over the past three weeks in the south-western Kabale district, he told Reuters news agency.

He said the authorities were conducting house-to-house searches for the gin.

The BBC's Joshua Mmali in the capital, Kampala, says waragi is drunk across Uganda, often by those who cannot afford industrialised alcohol.

He says deaths from drinking it are not uncommon but this is the largest number killed at one time for several years.

About 120 jerrycans of waragi have been seized, reports Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper.

"All the alcohol found has been confiscated but people are stubborn and have found ingenious ways of hiding it," Mr Tusiime said.

He said those affected became blind and suffered liver and kidney failure before dying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8640731.stm
 
Christ, I'm glad I never touched the stuff when I was in Uganda. Thought it looked dodgy as fuck.

Huaca said:
I feel sorry for people that don't have access to decent substances to get high with.
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No need to be, weed is cheap and abundant there. Decent sativa strains. I spent most of my time in a haze...
 
This is just terrible, bunch of people cooking up bathtub gin (banana bathtub gin in this instance) and killing people. I responded to a similar topic a while back and explained the process to PROPERLY distill whiskey with the addition that they may be spiking it with methanol. This shit will taste like hell will get you drunk and my kill or maim you . . . drink up and enjoy.

I will post up what I posted earlier on distillation if anyone wants to read it.
 
PK555 said:
This is just terrible, bunch of people cooking up bathtub gin (banana bathtub gin in this instance) and killing people. I responded to a similar topic a while back and explained the process to PROPERLY distill whiskey with the addition that they may be spiking it with methanol. This shit will taste like hell will get you drunk and my kill or maim you . . . drink up and enjoy.

I will post up what I posted earlier on distillation if anyone wants to read it.
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So what your saying is you can REALLY taste Methanol?

I have a mate from South Africa and apparently people living on the street that way purchase 98% Ethanol/2% Methanol from the Hardware Shop.

They filter it through Bread before the drink it and this gets ride of most of the Methanol (poison).

... Not that I recommend it ... just saying. :\
 
It can be tasted and smelled yes but, it also can be masked by different things (flavorings for instance) but, on top of it this stuff probably doesn't taste to great in the first place remember, it's made to make money fast (like sugar moon shine in the southern U.S.) and get you drunk. Filtering it (especially trough bread) won't rid it of the all methanol either (be it taste or smell) and methanol is VERY toxic0. This stuff is LITERALLY poison if you drink it filtered or not.
 
Fuck Yeah! ... I hear blindness is a common symptom of drinking moonshine type liquor. :0
 
I really dont get this....Alcohol isnt that difficult to brew. Distilling it takes some work, but this isnt rocket science.

What genius decided to add methanol?


At least they dont deliberately poison the industrial alcohol just to harm people who drink it like they do here.
 
I am not knowledgeable about distillation, but I have brewed my own beer and wine. I didnt realize it was so easy to kill someone making alcohol.
 
I don't know if the above infomation is correct, but in saying that im a bit rusty with this my self but

From what I gather you can't purify MeOH from EtOH much from distilliation because they from an azotrope and both substances distill togther. If I remember my high school chem class people who would make moonshine would make MeOH by accident when useing fruits that contained some protein (pictin or something?). I think bananas was one of these.

Im guessing in this case someone just desided to cut their producted with some EtOH MeOH blend and was hopeing the metho wouldnt hurt anyone.

Im curious any chem heads out there if im anywhere near close
 
^You are correct it can be a by product of certain fruits which is why corn and sugar are the 2 most common well sugars to make moonshine with and no it can't be purified, and monstanoodle, they very well could be spiking it for potency, gangsters did it in the 20's but, we just don't know for sure what they did.
 
Sentience said:
I am not knowledgeable about distillation, but I have brewed my own beer and wine. I didnt realize it was so easy to kill someone making alcohol.
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Wine & Beer don't have the risk of creating methanol. I think it's only the hard alcohols that are distilled that run that risk. I think. Why doesn't bluelight have a hooch forum??
 
PK555 said:
and monstanoodle, they very well could be spiking it for potency, gangsters did it in the 20's but, we just don't know for sure what they did.
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That's fucked. I guess back then maybe the knowledge that Methanol was really, really, really, really bad for you wasn't so common as it is today (other than with Chemists etc.).
Maybe that's the case over there? Lack of widespread information and lack of access to harm reduction websites?
Who knows. Anyhoo, cheers for that PK :)
 
They knew it was toxic it's just they didn't care but it can also come from bad distillation equipment, some guys will use an old truck radiator as a condenser for example, but in any case this is just bad on so many levels, anyhow your welcome monstanoodle.
 
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static_mind said:
From what I gather you can't purify MeOH from EtOH much from distilliation because they from an azotrope and both substances distill togther
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I don't know about this. I'm not challenging it, just saying I don't know. I suppose that because of the hydrogen bonding you won't achieve 100% elimination of methanol, but with a good fractionating column, pressure control and a lot of patience I'd be surprised if you wouldn't be able to get everything but trace amounts of MeOH out of the ethanol. If you have access to a refractometer you can combine the refractive index of your product with the specific gravity (to correct for moisture) and figure out how close to absolute ethanol you've gotten.
 
8ft-Sativa said:
So what your saying is you can REALLY taste Methanol?

I have a mate from South Africa and apparently people living on the street that way purchase 98% Ethanol/2% Methanol from the Hardware Shop.

They filter it through Bread before the drink it and this gets ride of most of the Methanol (poison).

... Not that I recommend it ... just saying. :\
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Yup, called methylated spirits. Other countries call it denatured alcohol. And lots of people go blind after filtering it through bread. It's a purple fluid, looks quite tasty (like the shooter po10c) but I wouldn't recommend it.
 
during prohibition in the USA, automotive antifreeze was wood alcohol (methyl) and not ethylene glycol . street bums would drain cooling systems for the alcohol and blindness was too often the result .
sterno was a favorite as well and i am surprised to see the 'bread filter' myth still in circulation .
 
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