Summary
Four people have died, including 19-year-old Australian Bianca Jones, two Danish women in their 20s, and a 56-year-old US citizen, after suspected methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng, a popular backpacker destination in Laos.
Several others, including six British and one New Zealand traveler, remain hospitalized.
The poisoning is believed to be linked to free shots offered at a local bar, prompting warnings from travelers to avoid local spirits.
Authorities fear a mass poisoning, with investigations underway into the source of the contaminated drinks.
Feeling pretty lucky that the “free shots” when I went were apparently actually ethanol. Better to be careful but when you’re a few drinks deep, a little high and floating down a river on a tire inner tube, bad decisions do happen.
In Vang Vieng, stick to the beer and avoid any of the swings, slides and other bullshit at these riverside bars. I saw one guy literally in a full body cast because of this shit.
Vang Vien was a wretched hive of scum and villainy 20 years ago. Doesn’t sound likes it’s improved much.
As I understand it, you can pretty easily fuck up when distilling and leave the methanol in if you don’t know what you’re doing. The first bit of stuff that boils off and collects, the foreshots, contains awful stuff like methanol and acetone. If you don’t remove this you’ll have methanol in your moonshine (and also it will taste awful).
This probably wasn’t done maliciously, would be my guess, but rather someone was learning how to use a still and seriously messed up.
Edit: I may be wrong, it sounds like you’d have to drink a lot of tainted moonshine to die. So maybe this was malicious. Or someone accidentally served foreshots.
Yeah the issue is that methanol mixed with ethanol, which you naturally find in spirits that have been distilled carelessly (or in cost cutting) is less poisonous than pure methanol. Ethanol is actually an antidote to methanol poisoning (although not the preferred one if fomepizol is available) so when they’re mixed you’re less likely to die from it (though you still might go blind, as methanol is acutely toxic to the optic nerve).
In these cases where multiple people died I’m more likely to suspect they were served commodity methanol which is used as a fuel additive and industrial solvent. This stuff is extremely cheap and readily available.
What a tragedy. I feel terrible for these people! My former roommate knew a girl in high school who died from methanol poisoning at a party after some kids found a bottle in somebody’s garage. It’s really terrible.
What a tragedy. >I feel terrible for these people! My former roommate knew a girl in high school who died from methanol poisoning at a party after some kids found a bottle in somebody’s garage. It’s really terrible.
On a related note, I am struggling to understand why the US still denatures alcohol to intentionally make it fatal for teens. Other countries require that denatured alcohol be dyed and to have terrible bitter flavors added so that it can’t be accidentally confused with a strong liquor. Hell, the Soviets even required this.
The U.S. has a very strong affinity for the Just-World Fallacy. It underlies almost everything you can think of in terms of their laws and beliefs. Many Americans believe in retributive justice, not rehabilitation or restorative justice. Many Americans are also strongly individualist and staunchly opposed to government regulation.
I think a lot of this can be traced back to the US’s founding as a set of colonies leading to the Declaration of Independence. This gives American culture a rugged independence, rebelliousness, and anti-government-intervention.
could someone still hold a grudge regarding the many ‘free shots’ that the yanks delivered back in the days?
In Laos, the booze is cheaper than the mixers. You can get a cup of vodka for cheaper than a vodka and coke, so you can guess what the tourists drink.
Considering how cheap booze is in Laos, I feel like free shots would be a red flag.
Not really! Tourist hotels provide complimentary alcohol.
This is really scary stuff.
