5 ms·

US ban on at-home distilling is unconstitutional, Texas judge rules

41 points by jrflowers 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
Lead and methanol poisoning rates rise in spate of car radiator removals, tire theft down. (In Australia, backyard stills are a smallish "thing" with many migrant communities 40% of the population is or descends from overseas. They know how to avoid the risks of the first flows, and dissolved contamination but poisoning still happens from time to time, maybe once or twice a decade)
- llm_trw 2y ago
  How many people die from regular use of alcohol during that time?
  - ggm 2y ago
    Many, many many.
- aaron695 2y ago
  Three lies here - > Lead and methanol poisoning rates rise Lead is just made up Methanol doesn't happen unless you are making 1000's of liters of distilled product for gas and also are drinking it and get it mixed up. Industrial processes for non food grade products can have problems if you drink it. Homebrew spirts have less methanol than Laphroaig or Caliber because they have to keep the methanol since that also has the flavor. > In Australia, backyard stills are a smallish "thing" with many migrant communities And every 'Ozie Ozie Ozie Oi Oi Oi' student group. Stills are in all the homebrew stores (For "essential oils" / no one cares) e.g. air stills from their half brothers where it's legal - https://www.homebrewshop.co.nz/product/still-spirits-air-still/ https://www.homebrewshop.co.nz/product/still-spirits-air-sti...
  - ggm 2y ago
    "Lies" is very emotive language. Lead: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00016616.htm#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20this%20problem%20can%20result,L%20of%20lead%20(1) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00016616.htm#:~:te.... Methanol is a product of the first flows if you have bacterial contamination or high pectin levels in the wash. As long as you don't drink it, you're fine but pretending home stills don't have a Methanol risk because of volume is a bit odd. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028366/ Backyard still deaths: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/diy-drink-at-your-peril-experts-warn-it8217s-not-charming-it-can-kill/news-story/66e3a7144c20ffcc1e6ca7f11f2287fe https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/diy-drink-at-yo...
h2odragon 2y ago
I suspect he'll be overturned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
- o11c 2y ago
  What does precedent have to do with court rulings?
  - alsetmusic 2y ago
    At this point, very little.
- votepaunchy 2y ago
  This was a tax, not a ban on production for personal use. There is no precedent here.
  - eesmith 2y ago
    If a ban is unconstitutional, what about a $100 million per liter tax?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
anotherhue 2y ago
Look, if we can have bump stocks we can have a whiskey still. Pick a lane.
poikroequ 2y ago
> The Justice Department argued the ban was a valid measure designed by Congress to protect the substantial revenue the government raises from taxing distilled spirits by limiting where plants could be located. This just feels like government overreach. Banning something just to protect tax revenue? Even if it were constitutional, it's still completely unjustified.
- zappb 2y ago
  That’s essentially the argument they used in the past to regulate intrastate commerce of cannabis.
- bhelkey 2y ago
  Huh, I was under the impression the ban was due to the dangers of home distilling (e.g. blindness).
  - saithound 2y ago
    Home distilling for personal use is legal in e.g. New Zealand, as well as many Eastern European EU countries such as Slovenia [1]. Blindness is certainly one possible risk of moonshine consumption, but if you thought it was a danger of home distilling, you had the causal mechanisms badly messed up. Blindness and kidney failure may result from methanol poisoning: as the name suggests, you get this by ingesting methanol, an alcohol which looks and smells similar to the alcohol (ethanol) in alcoholic drinks. Does moonshine contain methanol? Only in trace amounts. Even if you made deliberate efforts to maximize methanol content, alcohol distilled from fermented cereal grains or fruits would still only contain about 5g of methanol for every 1000g of ethanol. Even if you wanted to, you won't obtain methanol by fermenting/distilling. Why is moonshine associated with methanol poisoning, then? Well, remember how methanol has a similar taste and smell to ethanol? It is also a cheap to produce, low tax byproduct of many industrial processes. So people wanted to a increase their profits on the moonshine they sold deliberately adulterated it by mixing in some methanol, sometimes in what they thought were non-dangerous amounts, sometimes because they didn't care and thought they'd get away with it [2]. This is called lacing moonshine; it's always a deliberate act and not something that can happen by accident or by making a mistake during home distillation. This is not a danger of home distilling, though. It's a danger of buying adulterated products from dodgy people. And people dodgy enough to distill alcohol at home to commit tax fraud (or previously to skirt prohibition laws) are often not above poisoning people for profit either. This has nothing to do with home distilling, though. If you buy cheap alcohol from dodgy people in countries where home distilling is banned, they still might have just bought 10 liters of vodka from the government regulated distillery then mixed it with 2 liters of methanol and sold you the higher volume mixture for profit. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_i...
ein0p 2y ago
Of course it is. It’s a pure money grab and nothing else. Ban on growing weed is probably unconstitutional too.
- quantified 2y ago
  Ban on growing anything put on the earth by God is problematic.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    I would make an exception for invasive species, but that’s about it
  - eesmith 2y ago
    Banning GMO crops is fine then, yes? Did God put corn on the earth?
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    God made anthrax, thus I should be able to grow anthrax.

41 points by jrflowers 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

Lead and methanol poisoning rates rise in spate of car radiator removals, tire theft down. (In Australia, backyard stills are a smallish "thing" with many migrant communities 40% of the population is or descends from overseas. They know how to avoid the risks of the first flows, and dissolved contamination but poisoning still happens from time to time, maybe once or twice a decade)

llm_trw 2y ago
How many people die from regular use of alcohol during that time?
- ggm 2y ago
  Many, many many.
aaron695 2y ago
Three lies here - > Lead and methanol poisoning rates rise Lead is just made up Methanol doesn't happen unless you are making 1000's of liters of distilled product for gas and also are drinking it and get it mixed up. Industrial processes for non food grade products can have problems if you drink it. Homebrew spirts have less methanol than Laphroaig or Caliber because they have to keep the methanol since that also has the flavor. > In Australia, backyard stills are a smallish "thing" with many migrant communities And every 'Ozie Ozie Ozie Oi Oi Oi' student group. Stills are in all the homebrew stores (For "essential oils" / no one cares) e.g. air stills from their half brothers where it's legal - https://www.homebrewshop.co.nz/product/still-spirits-air-still/ https://www.homebrewshop.co.nz/product/still-spirits-air-sti...
- ggm 2y ago
  "Lies" is very emotive language. Lead: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00016616.htm#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20this%20problem%20can%20result,L%20of%20lead%20(1) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00016616.htm#:~:te.... Methanol is a product of the first flows if you have bacterial contamination or high pectin levels in the wash. As long as you don't drink it, you're fine but pretending home stills don't have a Methanol risk because of volume is a bit odd. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028366/ Backyard still deaths: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/diy-drink-at-your-peril-experts-warn-it8217s-not-charming-it-can-kill/news-story/66e3a7144c20ffcc1e6ca7f11f2287fe https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/diy-drink-at-yo...

h2odragon 2y ago

I suspect he'll be overturned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

o11c 2y ago
What does precedent have to do with court rulings?
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  At this point, very little.
votepaunchy 2y ago
This was a tax, not a ban on production for personal use. There is no precedent here.
- eesmith 2y ago
  If a ban is unconstitutional, what about a $100 million per liter tax?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

anotherhue 2y ago

Look, if we can have bump stocks we can have a whiskey still. Pick a lane.

poikroequ 2y ago

> The Justice Department argued the ban was a valid measure designed by Congress to protect the substantial revenue the government raises from taxing distilled spirits by limiting where plants could be located. This just feels like government overreach. Banning something just to protect tax revenue? Even if it were constitutional, it's still completely unjustified.

zappb 2y ago
That’s essentially the argument they used in the past to regulate intrastate commerce of cannabis.
bhelkey 2y ago
Huh, I was under the impression the ban was due to the dangers of home distilling (e.g. blindness).
- saithound 2y ago
  Home distilling for personal use is legal in e.g. New Zealand, as well as many Eastern European EU countries such as Slovenia [1]. Blindness is certainly one possible risk of moonshine consumption, but if you thought it was a danger of home distilling, you had the causal mechanisms badly messed up. Blindness and kidney failure may result from methanol poisoning: as the name suggests, you get this by ingesting methanol, an alcohol which looks and smells similar to the alcohol (ethanol) in alcoholic drinks. Does moonshine contain methanol? Only in trace amounts. Even if you made deliberate efforts to maximize methanol content, alcohol distilled from fermented cereal grains or fruits would still only contain about 5g of methanol for every 1000g of ethanol. Even if you wanted to, you won't obtain methanol by fermenting/distilling. Why is moonshine associated with methanol poisoning, then? Well, remember how methanol has a similar taste and smell to ethanol? It is also a cheap to produce, low tax byproduct of many industrial processes. So people wanted to a increase their profits on the moonshine they sold deliberately adulterated it by mixing in some methanol, sometimes in what they thought were non-dangerous amounts, sometimes because they didn't care and thought they'd get away with it [2]. This is called lacing moonshine; it's always a deliberate act and not something that can happen by accident or by making a mistake during home distillation. This is not a danger of home distilling, though. It's a danger of buying adulterated products from dodgy people. And people dodgy enough to distill alcohol at home to commit tax fraud (or previously to skirt prohibition laws) are often not above poisoning people for profit either. This has nothing to do with home distilling, though. If you buy cheap alcohol from dodgy people in countries where home distilling is banned, they still might have just bought 10 liters of vodka from the government regulated distillery then mixed it with 2 liters of methanol and sold you the higher volume mixture for profit. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_i...

ein0p 2y ago

Of course it is. It’s a pure money grab and nothing else. Ban on growing weed is probably unconstitutional too.

quantified 2y ago
Ban on growing anything put on the earth by God is problematic.
- ein0p 2y ago
  I would make an exception for invasive species, but that’s about it
- eesmith 2y ago
  Banning GMO crops is fine then, yes? Did God put corn on the earth?
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  God made anthrax, thus I should be able to grow anthrax.