Subject: Re: UK mutation of Blue Star Date: 16 Jan 94 22:17:55 And now a mutation from the

From: cindy@lise.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: UK mutation of Blue Star
Date: 16 Jan 94 22:17:55

And now a mutation from the Land of the Trolls:

Home distilling is a serious problem in some parts of Norway,
including right here in Tr|ndelag.  Distilling at all is technically
illegal, but mostly the police go after where the real problem is:
producers making 90+% alcohol for sale, as cheaply as possible, with
no concern for how safe the stuff actually is.  (At least in these
parts, those who produce only for their own use usually get left alone
unless they do something dumb, like blow up the still and their barn
along with it.)  The problem comes either from teenagers buying it and
getting seriously smashed, or people getting sick - sometimes dying -
from impurities.

Well, "everyone knows" that some producers doctor the stuff with
caustic soda, so they can dilute it with water without anyone being
the wiser.  The caustic soda makes it seem just as strong as ever.
Last fall two men in Trondheim died after drinking illegal, home
distilled alcohol.  The police announced that the cause was caustic
soda in the alcohol.  

Massive campaign.  Go around to all the schools, all the youth
centers, anywhere where kids hang out, and tell them: the people who
sell you that stuff are more concerned with their profit than your
lives.  It may be poisoned with caustic soda.  Stay away!  Don't drink
it!  Same message at the Salvation Army mission and other places where
the city's hard-core alcoholics tend to gather.  Often a police
officer would show up and tell about what his fellow officers had
seen, finding some drunk who had bought a tainted bottle, and how he
had to be rushed to the hospital... well, fill in the gruesome details
for yourself.

Except that yesterday a spokesbeing for the Trondheim police
admitted... they've HEARD about alcohol tainted with caustic soda for
30 years now... but, no bottle they've ever actually analysed
contained any.  They hadn't even tested the stuff drunk by the two men
who died.

Back to square one...
-Cindy Kandolf
 cindy@lise.unit.no
 Trondheim, Norway