Disturbing truth about methanol poisonings around the world

Six tourists including two Aussie teens tragically died from methanol poisoning last year. And it’s a nightmare that will happen again.

It’s colourless. It’s odourless. It’s tasteless. So, what’s the best warning your drink has been laced with toxic methanol?

Politics.

The recent deaths of two young Australian tourists and four other travellers in Laos has shocked a nation obsessed with soaking up the best the world has to offer.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese summed up the tragic scenario as “every parent’s very worst fear and a nightmare”. But it should not have been a surprise.

Such poisonings are far from uncommon. It’s just rare for the victims to be foreign tourists. Or Australians.

More than 100 people died with 160 hospitalised in a single 2018 Indonesian poisoning case. And that’s a Muslim nation that severely restricts alcohol consumption.

But it took the death of 19-year-old Liam Davies in Lombok after drinking tainted vodka in 2012 before Australia really took notice.

Liam Davies tragically died from methanol poisoning in Lombok in 2012. Picture: Facebook

In June last year, a methanol poisoning incident in India killed 65 people. In 2012, about 50 were poisoned by methanol-laced rice wine in Cambodia. More than 40 died after drinking adulterated palm liquor in 2019. Malaysia reported dozens of similar deaths in 2018.

“The human tragedy rightly commands media attention,” analyst David Hutt comments in The Diplomat.

“But, at some level, one can say that this is a consequence of a Laos state that has wilted so much that it cannot legislate and implement simple laws.”

Such a cocktail of political failures becomes fatal when mixed with a cost of living crisis.

And these economic pressures are already apparent in Australia.

An April raid by Victoria Police and the Australian Taxation Office uncovered a black market network worth more than $1 billion. Its alcohol was extracted from industrial paint stripper and brake fluid. Like Laos, this was mixed with name-brand products and onsold as legitimate products or cocktails.

One litre of pure alcohol costs $101.85 with spirit excises. Australian bootleggers were selling it for just $10.

Melbourne teen Bianca Jones died in the Laos methanol poisoning tragedy. Picture: Facebook

Best friend Holly Bowles was also killed. Picture: Facebook

Cocktail of temptations

“ … this is a consequence of a state that stands near motionless as the country is defaced by cyber scammers, drug traffickers, and squeezing, wrenching, grasping Lao oligarchs and Chinese magnates,” Hutt argues of the Laos poisonings.

Alcohol can be distilled at home. And substituting it for expensive commercial products is an obvious saving for cash-strapped businesses and communities.

“There is a strong economic driver for individuals and organisations to engage in illicit practices,” the US National Centre for Biotechnology Information warns.

“Factors that frame and incentivise this activity include weak public and private institutions, corruption, low Gross Domestic Product (GDP), low tax morale, high taxes or complex tax systems and the price differential between illegal and legal alternatives.”

But victims are rarely tourists.

The ABC reported that these rundown buildings were the possible source of the methanol alcohol poisoning that killed numerous backpackers including two Australians in Laos. Picture: ABC

They are a valuable asset. And they usually have money to spend.

“It is more common for local residents to be affected,” Aisyah Llewellyn writes in The Diplomat.

“(It’s) usually those from lower socio-economic backgrounds for whom legal alcohol … is prohibitively expensive.

“This means that they often turn to cheaper home-brewed alternatives instead, with no knowledge of what they are actually drinking.”

Methanol is inherent in the manufacture of alcohol.

“(It) can naturally occur in small amounts during the production of alcoholic beverages, but these trace levels are harmless,” explains Swinburne University brain scientist Dr Blair Aitken.

“The problem is quality control versus potency.”

“There are two common causes when alcoholic drinks are contaminated with methanol,” explains University of Reading chemist Chris Smith.

“With home-style distillation of spirits, lower boiling methanol can contaminate the final product. It is a matter of the distiller’s skill to prevent this, but it also reduces the yield of spirits. These compromises can be tragic.”

Six tourists died of suspected methanol poisoning after a night out in the Laos backpacker hotspot of Vang Vieng last week. Picture: AFP

Ultimately, it is the same “bang for your buck” offered by methanol that kills consumers.

“In other cases, methanol is intentionally added to counterfeit alcohol because it is easier to produce and a cheap way to increase alcohol content,” warns Dr Aitken.

Political poison

Very few patients are presenting to Australian emergency wards with methanol poisoning. And methanol adulteration of homemade alcohol was reported in only a handful of calls to national poison hotlines.

What few cases there were could be treated quickly.

Time is of the essence. Dialysis needs to begin as soon as possible, before the methanol begins to attack vital organs.

Bianca Jones’s funeral at Mentone Girls Grammar. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

“These hospital interventions require significant expertise and equipment, which can place great strain on the local healthcare system,” writes Smith.

“Transporting these critical patients to a better-equipped hospital is often required, as demonstrated in the recent poisoning where patients had to be transported from Vang Vieng in Laos to Bangkok in Thailand.”

A “critical factor” in the recent Laos deaths was the “absolutely abysmal” state of Laos’ healthcare system, argues economist Damien Phillips in The Spectator.

Laos doesn’t have “one decent hospital”, he asserts.

Mourners at the funeral of Bianca Jones, who died in Laos after methanol poisoning at a backpackers bar. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

The “self-destructive economic policies” of the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) mean the country has been “stagnating for almost half a century”, he concludes, with billions of dollars of foreign aid being squandered through corruption.

“Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of the case in Laos, is that methanol poisoning cases have been happening for years, and yet people, both locals and foreigners, keep dying due to a lack of information about the dangers,” Llewellyn writes in The Diplomat.

“This has been coupled with a lack of effort by the authorities to clamp down on illicit alcohol, and a lack of widespread training for medical professionals in countries where cases continue to occur.”

As little as 25 millilitres of pure methanol — less than the size of a standard shot — can be lethal. And the temptation to cut costs is becoming increasingly intense.

“There’s no way of knowing how many bottles of liquor laced with methanol are in circulation, and there’s no way of knowing whether the shot in your hand hasn’t come from one of them,” concludes Hutt.

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @jamieseidel.bsky.social