Laos Methanol Poisining

[girlfriend44]

Not seen anything on MN about it.
AIBU to not understand what's going on?
Where the bars and clubs not aware the drinks were deadly, or was it deliberate?

What a horrible thing to happen to these young people!😱

You can get fake alcohol in Greece too. We used to call them 'bomb' drinks because the next morning it felt like a bomb had gone off in your head.

In these places you go to bars and you can get the local vodka/rum/spirit or an imported one (if they have it at all) for 10 times the price. I drank it when I went in my 20s and never would have imagined I was drinking “moonshine”.

You’re probably fine in Thailand or Vietnam but Laos is a much poorer country with god only knows what regulation or enforcement.

I’ve been to Vang Vieng, it’s stunning and Laos is an incredible country with very open hearted people. It’s terribly sad for the families of the people involved.

The Zante cough from cheap vodka imported from Russia

I'm a 38 year old reasonably intelligent woman who has travelled quite a bit - albeit not backpacking but I've been to plenty of Countries both rich and poor over the years.

Being careful of alcohol or only drinking from sealed bottles and cans honestly has never occurred to me. Literally never entered my mind, nor have I ever read anything about it. I mean, if some dodgy bloke sidled up to me in a dark alley with a shot then obviously I'd probably have declined. But bars, clubs, even street bars - well there were always crowds of people and we've just kind of assumed it's OK and gone with it. Even taken drinks from some places and dh and I were kind of 'well it's a bit grubby but there's lots of people here, a few germs won't harm' 😬

It's bloody frightening. I can't believe I never really even thought of it - but I suppose you don't know what you don't know. Ds1 is nearly 17 and already murmering about a boys holiday somewhere far flung, in 2026 after he's 18. I'm honestly so glad I've read this so I can thoroughly warn him. I don't think I'd have said anything otherwise, outside the 'don't get too drunk' advice.

God those poor people and families.

I doubt it was deliberate. I went there more than 20 years ago. The local spirits were dirt cheap and probably not that safely manufactured. Thank goodness nobody got sick back then. But it was like a one horse town, there was only one street that was constructed a few years earlier. Loads of people died there doing tubing a few years ago. Someone died in the waterfall near luang prebang as they have loads of dodgy valium on sale there too.
I hope they prosecute whoever manufactured and served it. RIP those poor young girls x

It’s so awful all those young life’s just gone and for what? So someone could save a few bucks?

I had heard of it before but didn’t think it was so widespread and I hope this sad event promotes awareness of the risks.

Thankfully for me I rarely drink so even though I’ve been to both Thailand (in my 20s) and Vietnam (more recently) while being fairly ignorant of the level of risk, I don’t think I even touched alcohol when I was there anyway.

I was all about the smoothies in Thailand and the coffees in Vietnam and the food in both.

I think I can vaguely remember a similar story in a European country a few years ago. Maybe Greece?

How does methanol do that much damage. Is it extremely poisonous.

It happens in the UK too, a few years ago the off licence in my street was raided over illegal bottles of fake vodka being sold

@ladydiggins Mr Trebus is a British Hero!

I don't understand how this happens.

I know how to ferment sugars, grains, fruits etc and then distil to produce a spirit. (Vodka, Gin, Whisky etc)

You get impurities such as methanol, but they come off the distillation unit first (boiling point 64c), then comes the ethanol (boiling point 78c). Ethanol being the desired ingredient.

Are the producers of this "Hooch", so incompetent that they don't understand the basics of fermentation/distillation or is it more sinister?

I was under the impression that during the fermenting process methanol can accidentally occur. I am Australian and this is a regular issue in Bali, our close neighbour. Lots of Balinese people regularly pour out the first drink or 2 from a bottle of spirits as they are aware of this.

You won't always know if it is home brew alcohol as bars will reuse regular vodka bottles. It is fairly well known here because of our frequent travels to Bali. That is why it is really encouraged to only drink beer or premixed drinks over there. So incredibly sad for the young people who lost their lives though.

All the pictures of the victims that I've seen so far show blonde young women (I believe one man died too). I wondered if somebody had a dislike of blonde women and was deliberately targeting them with contaminated alcohol, but if @warofthetimemachines is correct, it may have affected more women simply because they're likely to drink less overall.

Fermentation naturally produces methanol along with the ethanol. Distillation is then used to separate the methanol from the ethanol. It isn't accidentally there. Either negligence or malice has taken place.

@Just2MoreSeasons This is actually happening - my favourite podcast ever. I listen to every evening; yet, didn't see this episode.

Will listen with interest. I didn't even realise this sort of thing could happen.

Oh I wholeheartedly agree it is likely negligence. I just said can occur during fermentation because I wasn't aware that it always occurs. My point was that homebrew alcohol and methanol poisoning is quite common thing through out South East Asia.

My teens are getting to the age where drinking is likely and because we go to Bali somewhat regularly it is something I have discussed at length with them. It is scary because I knew the risks when I was young and still drank cocktails.

It absolutely can be and is often intentionally added to drinks as a cheap way to increase volume although yeah it can be accidental too as a result of negligence.

From a Sky news article:

In southeast Asia and other popular tourist destinations, methanol can be found in alcoholic drinks for two main reasons.
Firstly, it is cheaper than ethanol, so it is sometimes added instead to save costs, before the counterfeit alcohol is bottled and sold in shops and bars.
Alternatively, it can occur by accident when alcohol is homemade - something common across southeast Asia.
When alcohol is distilled and fermented without the appropriate monitoring, it can sometimes produce methanol in toxic quantities.
Because it is impossible to tell the difference between methanol and ethanol content without specialist equipment - homemade drinks are often offered to tourists without anyone knowing how dangerous they are.

It is lack of regulation in a developing country where people are very poorly paid and there is little incentive to follow rules. I don't think there was anything intentional.
2 of the young women were from Melbourne where I live and there is utter devastation in their community.

Of course we don’t know either way if this specific case was caused by an intentional act or not until the investigation concludes.

I’m no expert on it but my online research into this tells me that (generally speaking) it does unfortunately happen intentionally quite frequently due to people wanting to increase profit margins.

Maybe they didn’t distil. They could have separated the alcohol by freezing. In which case the methanol would not have boiled off before the ethanol.

I remember a BBC documentary series a few years ago about Environmental Health Officers going about their business (anyone recall Mr Trebus??)

A Life of Grime.

Mr Trebus was legendary.

Yes they, from what I understand, hadn't poured the top of the bottle off. I hope they and the people that made it go to gaol for life. 2 young girls dead, plus a young UK lawyer , a US guy they havent released the details of and two Danish people. It's mass murder, simple as that.
#Boycott Laos

Explanation of what methanol does to the body near the end of this article about the poisonings and deaths.

Troubling claims about seedy Laos bar | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

I live in Thailand but have spent a lot of time in bordering countries. Home brewed spirits are everywhere and it is common knowledge to never, ever take a free drink. That is how the women get roofied and raped at the full moon parties.

Local (branded) spirits are literally like £5 a bottle if you are on a budget. It is insanity to drink unknown substances.

It is absolutely tragic what has happened but I am gobsmacked these people hadn't heard of this happening before or weren't worried about accepting opened drinks/spirits. It's like accepting pills from complete strangers.

I would have thought this was common knowledge but since it clearly isn't, I think our governments possibly need to run a few campaigns on social media warning people.

It's really important to make your adult children aware of this danger before they go travelling, especially in a backpacking/youth hostelling type situation.

One of the women who died was a newly qualified solicitor, so probably not an irresponsible idiot. It really is something that could happen to anyone in that sort of environment. I went to the full moon party in Thailand and the thing then was drinking disgusting "long island iced tea" out of buckets with straws. God only knows what was in it. I think I mostly stuck to beer, but not because I was aware of the risk of methanol poisoning.