[Granville-Hough] 5 Apr 2009 - Moonshine

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 07:53:50 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Moonshine - 5 April 2009


    Today is the day the little kids march into and around in our 
church, endeavoring to clobber the heads of friends  in the line with 
palm fronds.  Fortunately, it is a kind of swish rather than a bong.  

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    When Harold Hopkins stated that Jakeleg paralysis was directly 
associated with adulterated jake, I began to wonder about the other form 
of paralysis we saw from people who drank moonshine, or Merry Hell 
squeezins.  The advent of T-model Ford cars and trucks gave bootleggers 
an endless supply of old radiators which could be used to cook off the 
alcohol from the mash (or corn beer), though you could make moonshine 
with any grain which would ferment into mash.  These old radiators 
contained lead which contaminated the final brew, though it could not be 
detected by taste.  Persons addicted to moonshine developed lead 
poisoning, which began with memory loss, and graduated into brain 
swelling, paralysis, and even death.  Soon the problem was isolated to 
the old radiators, so bootleggers got rid of them and used copper piping 
which was held together at joints with metal solder, which is basically 
a lead compound subject to the same erosion as the lead in the old 
radiators.  So at the same time we had jakeleg paralysis, we also had 
moonshine paralysis, actually moonshine lead poisoning.  Out in the 
country where I lived, we were closer to Merry Hell than we were to any 
drug store where one could buy jake, so we made no distinction between 
the forms of paralysis. 
    Moonshine poisoning is still with us and eighty percent of U. S. 
deaths from lead poisoning in a normal year comes from those who drink 
moonshine rather than regulated alcoholic beverages..  In 2003, a study 
of 48 moonshine samples .was made by Dr. Christopher Holstege, Director 
of the Division of Medical Toxicology of the Virginia Health System.  
Over half the samples contained lead levels exceeding Federal water 
guidelines of 15 parts per billion.  One sample had 599 parts per 
billion. 43 samples had lead , leaving only five with no contamination.  
So, if you drink moonshine, you are going to accumulate enough lead to 
have lead poisoning.  If you keep it up, you are going to develop 
paralysis and die. 
    So, when Grandpa Jim Richardson wanted a re-supply of his favorite 
Cold remedy, he commissioned someone he trusted, generally Uncle Coley, 
to get him some bonded bourbon, generally bootlegged into Magee from the 
Gulf Coast or New Orleans.
    Our problems today are not with poisoned jake, or contaminated 
moonshine, but with a variety of mind-altering killer drugs -- cocaine, 
heroin, ecstacy, crystal meth, marijuana, and God-only knows what else.  
Public officials, in the U. S. as well as Mexico, are corrupted daily by 
the lure of drug money.  We of the U. S. are the major culprits, as we 
furnish and support the market for the drugs.  We also sell to the 
Mexican people the guns with which they kill each other.  And the daily 
killing rate in Mexico, alone, is greater than the combined U. S. 
casualties of both Afghanistan and Iraq.  And it's spilling over into 
the U. S.  What shall we do?
    I can recall the onset of the Great Depression, and I observed that 
you could make great social and cultural change in a period of economic 
instability.  People will try anything when they are at the bottom and 
can't do worse.  The time may be upon us to deal realistically with 
drugs, immigration, climate change, and even things like divorce, and 
birth control.  Your ideas may be better than mine, furthermore your 
ideas will count more as you are younger and will be in control.

    References: L. Lord, /"Moonshine doesn't come unleaded," /study 
says, _Roanoke Times-Dispatch,_5-30-03; /De-escalating the Drug War," 
/editorial, 2 April 2009, _Los Angeles Times_; Scott Craft, reporting 
from Rio Grande City, Starr County, TX, "/Blurry Border between Good, 
Bad," /_Los Angeles Times_, 3 April 2009; Ken Ellingwood, from Mexico 
City, /"Mexico under Seige - Suspected No. 2 figure in Juarez drug 
cartel arrested," /_Los Angeles Times_, 3 April 2009