Comment by ivan_gammel
1 day ago
It's more like "so you can't drink it" without the taxes part. Those taxes play important role in reducing alcohol consumption (though they are of course not the only tool), so making cheap ethanol poisonous and with different color closes the loophole in healthcare policy rather than opens a loophole in taxation.
E.g. study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3860576/
Every legal allowance I disagree with is a "loophole", every legal allowance I take advantage of is intended functionality.
I think if it's working as intended and as designed then it's hard to call it a loophole. Loophole would be when dying your spirit purple would change the taxation, because someone codified the color of alcohol instead of it's content.
But of course as you say it's largely semantics.
> I think if it's working as intended and as designed then it's hard to call it a loophole.
This assumes everyone acts in good faith.
A popular one these days is the "gun show 'loophole.'"
Rather than calling it "renegging on an explicitly-legislated compromise", it's a "loophole" that needs "closing."
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> making cheap ethanol poisonous and with different color closes the loophole in healthcare policy
I have never seen this as anything other than the death penalty for evading taxes. If the tax were designed to reduce consumption across the population, it needs to scale with income or net worth. Otherwise, it's just a tax on the poor.
I’m not sure how this is different from what I’m saying?
The thread is about bad things because of tax policy, your post is about a good thing because of health policy - but you don’t say it’s a good thing, or that it’s about heath not taxes.
The post pointing this out has different content to yours, which reads as if your meaning is “this reminds me of another bad thing caused by tax policies” - even if that’s not what you meant.
> you don’t say it’s a good thing
But I also never said OP’s anecdote was a bad thing. (Why shouldn’t countries be able to tax video cameras coming in…). What’s the difference?
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Couldn't they just make it taste bad, for safety's sake?
In some countries it's done so and poisoning is banned. E.g. Finland and Poland got an exemption from the EU to do this because so many people died from the poisonings.
Where can I read more about this? What poison were they using?
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Chinese cooking wines avoid alcohol taxes by adding salt. The salt is useful as a seasoning for food but makes the wine undrinkable!
Does remind me when I talked to a chef from a big restaurant about wine and cooking. He said, a lot of people who work in a kitchen have often an smaller or bigger alcohol problem. He said, as soon as wine is opened in the kitchen for cooking, he does add just a bit salt, so people in the team don't even try to drink some cooking wine.
That doesn't seem like a good idea as a lot of people would try to reduce salt intake due to blood pressure concerns, where the alcohol in this wouldn't be a concern for that as it would likely be cooked off
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That doesn't seem to stop people from drinking IPAs.
I'll save you from them.
Addiction is one helluva motivator, and some people will put up with horrible tasting stuff as long as it's a cheap high.
I live in one of the countries that just made it taste bad (because enough people died of poisoning it was allowed as an exception by the EU). I've drank a shot of denaturated alcohol once - half out of curiosity, half because I was already out of liquor at home for that evening.
If you close your nose the taste is just bitter, but bearable. The additives are supposed to make you vomit, but for me I only had vomit reflex for ~5 seconds after swallowing. I could live with that if I was addicted and couldn't afford a regular alcohol. I'm sure many people do.
Not sure what the moral is. I guess that addiction is a really strong motivator, and tax evasion is not a good enough reason to justify killing people with poison.
Including not checking as one person I know found out after drinking hand sanitizer. (some hand sanitizer is just alcohol that is made to taste bad, some of it isn't even alcohol, she got the later)
Not that pure spirit is something you drink for the wonderful taste, in the first place.
Chicago does it: https://malort.com/
Cute, didn't know it was a thing in Chicago!
I suppose wormwood is an acquired taste, but it's one I happen to like. They still put it in many different bitters here in Sweden.
In some countries that is allowed, but in others it has to actually be poisonous.
And in some, it's a tourist attraction. Don't drink "White Elephant" in Vietnam unless you want to wake up blind and pissing blood, at least according to a friend!
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Well, I hope it is both then.