In 49 bizarre and seemingly unrelated incidents this year, people in the Russian city of Irkutsk have died from drinking a brand bath lotion. All the victims were poor, aged 35 to 50. Many people in Russia drink alternatives to alcohol in the form of house hold products such as after shave and window cleaner. While poisonings like this are common, this is by far the deadliest to date. Apparently the ethyl alcohol normally in the product had been replaced by methanol, a deadly poison. The label read "93 percent spirit." Western economic sanctions have made this type of risky behavior much more prevalent in recent years.
Russia has a long history of intensely self destructive drug use. Crocodile is a form of street drug that causes its user's skin to grow lizard like and peel off. When government restrict safe recreational drugs, it only causes the problem to get worse. Instead of getting high safely, people resort to taking dangerous substances that end up killing them.
This is very much like the war on drugs in america. If the government continues to criminalize safe recreational drugs like alcohol or cannabis, this could very well be a glimpse into our future. With the republican control government, however, i believe that is the inevitable path we now find ourselves on.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38363441
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