At Least 14 Dead After Drinking Bootleg Alcohol

Bootleg Alcohol killed 14 people in the Iranian province of Alborz (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

At least 14 people died in Iran after consuming bootleg alcohol in the Northern Iranian province of Alborz, according to an article published on Sunday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The death toll could possibly be climbing, as an additional 120 people are suffering alcohol poisoning symptoms and have been referred to local medical centers within the province.

Legal authorities within the country claimed that the tainted liquor had been sold by a body spray factory within Alborz. This is just the latest incident in a slew of deaths related to consuming bootleg alcohol within the country of Iran.

Alcohol is outlawed by the Iranian Government and has been since the 1979 Islamic Revolution; this has given rise to a robust black market. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Iran’s black market liquor industry was thriving and hundreds of people died from methanol-based bootleg alcohol, according to ABC News.

Despite the country’s attempted liquor ban, rates of alcoholism are cited as relatively high in Iran. According to a study published by the National Library of Medicine in late May, the prevalence of excessive alcohol consumption ranged from 6.9 to 18.8%. In a study run by Iran Open Data with 2000 participants, nearly 48% admitted to drinking homemade moonshine, as was cited in Iranwire.

An article penned by the Atlantic in June of 2012 cited 60 to 80 million liters of smuggled booze consumed in the country, even though the regime implements harsh punishments for breaking these laws including lashes and death.

The Atlantic cited many reasons for alcoholism in the country including high inflation, social problems, and government oppression.

The country has experienced widespread political unrest since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police on September 16, 2022. Reuters cites the protests in the wake of her death as the “biggest in the Islamic Republic” since 2019.

Why is Bootleg Alcohol so Dangerous?

The category of bootleg alcohol is a fairly wide one. It can refer to homemade beverages, moonshine, imitations of certain brands and smuggled booze, according to an article in Business Insider.

Consumption of tainted counterfeit booze can be deadly due to methanol poisoning. Bootleggers sometimes add methanol, a chemical often found in antifreeze, to increase profit margins, according to an article found in the National Library of Medicine. Though it occurs rarely in the United States, methanol poisoning can kill unwitting consumers.

Symptoms of methanol poisoning often include profuse sweating, vomiting, dizziness, blindness and loss of consciousness, as cited in an article in ABC News.

Methanol-laced booze poisonings are a global problem. In 2021, thirty-four people died of methanol poisoning in southern Urals, a Russian region near Kazakhstan. A similar incident in India that occurred in December involved the deaths of 21 people.

Large liquor companies like Diageo have expressed concern about the apparent rise in counterfeit booze operations, citing them as a “huge risk to health.”

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