An Australian teenager has died after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos in what Australia’s prime minister on Thursday called every parent’s nightmare. An American and two Danish tourists also died, officials said, following reports that several people had been sickened in a Laotian town popular with backpackers.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Denatured ethanol has denatonium benzoate in it, yes it’s a strange word which I suspect primarily serves a legislative purpose. If it had been denatured alcohol, nobody would have died, it would have just tasted bitter.

    • Saleh
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      11 hours ago

      Still what he said doesnt make sense as the compound is added specificqlly to make the ethanol undrinkable and therefore not eligble for alcohol taxes like you said.

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Not disputing that, they have clearly muddled a few things up. Perhaps they mean methylated spirit - that has methanol and denatonium benzoate added to it, but I haven’t seen it for sale in many years as it kept killing homeless alcoholics.