Prohibition: Speakeasy In Chief

On New Year's Day 1927, New York City's medical examiner stood in front of reporters and accused the United States government of poisoning its own citizens. He could prove it, because the bodies were stacking up in his morgue. In this episode, we tear down the postcard version of Prohibition, the flappers and the jazz and the secret knock at the speakeasy door, and walk through what the thirteen-year war on alcohol actually cost. A federal denaturing program deliberately laced industrial alcohol with methanol and contributed to an estimated 10,000 American deaths, defended by the most powerful lobbyist in the country on...