Subj : Re: Absinthe: It Can Kill You ID [Freud]
To   : NuSkooler
From : DustCouncil
Date : Sat Aug 19 2023 19:06:10

 Nu> Zero of this is true. It's literally just "another alcohol". Wormwood,
 Nu> which is what *was* outlawed in the US for a while is the only thing
 Nu> that made 'true' absinthe different than the 'fake' stuff you could
 Nu> continue to buy. And that was only banned due to some oldschool FUD,
 Nu> which turns out to not be true at all. The US government essentially
 Nu> poisoned some alcohol for a bit under the guise of Absinthe, then it was
 Nu> outlawed.

This is right.

The focus on the ban was a food regulation, not a drug regulation.  The chemical thujone, which comes in with the wormwood, was not approved as a safe-to-consume substance.  The ban in the US had nothing to do with drugs, hallucinations, addiction, or anything like that -- at least not the law that was repealed in the 2000s.  There is lots of thujone in Vicks Vapo-Rub, but that is not something you consume.  If thujone was a hallucinogen, people would be extracting it from countless other (non-consumable) products which contain it.  It is simply a not-safe-for-consumption chemical, but not because it is a narcotic.

They figured out how to limit the thujone in absinthe production (PPM) under a certain threshold, which met the new guidelines.

Absinthe today is also much more quality controlled, which is why you can buy it anywhere.

It is fair to say that alcohol can destroy your life; but the best two reasons not to drink absinthe are the alcohol, and secondly, the good stuff is really expensive.

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 * Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (700:100/72)

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