Boy Dies From Drinking Homebrew Ouzo

[DiscoStu]

Ouzo is a spirit. It is distilled. Home distilling is illegal and this sort of thing will help to make it remain so. Some illegally distilling can't and won't make one iota of difference to the legality of making beer and wine at home.

IMHO your argument relies on the media and the politicians having the integrity and honesty to distinguish between illegal spirit distillation and legitimate home brewing of beer as well as the general public understanding the difference between the two.

The government increased the tax on alchopops knowing full well it would do nothing to reduce binge drinking, but would increase tax revenue. The media has happily gone along with this charade.

The general public will believe whatever A Current Affair/Today Tonight tell them to, so if the media decide to make the "homebrew" angle an issue in this story however unfounded, expect the pollies take it up.

 

[PostModern]

Happily the media and politicians don't write legislation.

Sadly I know a few brew shops that rely on the sale of stills, for nudge-nudge, wink-wink, the distillation of water. If the LHBS didn't place itself as a replacement for the bottle shop in all things, there might exist a little less confusion.

 

[boingk]

Christ, sounds like what happened at a party when I was in third form...poor bloody girl worked her way through a bottle and a half of spirits before the groups she'd been with worked out what was happening. End of story we barred her from anything else then watched as she collapsed. Somone called the ambos while a mate gave her CPR. Christ she was lucky.

And that was all with good old over-the-counter stuff. In the end its not how its made, as when it comes down to it spirits are spirits - high percentage liqour in a bottle intended for consumption. She had no idea and I'm guessing a lot of the people at the party didn't either, which is what I'm assuming happened at the one in the news article.

Heres one for the vote to make some sort of actual education on the issue mandatory, because I know I didn't learn a hell of a lot about it in school. I'm lucky I had good parents who allowed me a beer or glass of wine on occasion with the family and taught me that a) you don't need alcohol for a good time and B) when you do drink it shouldn't be excessive, because there isn't anything smart or cool about that.

Cheers all - boingk

 

[geoffi]

Nice idea about education in schools...but there'd be an explosion of outrage from the wowsers, moralisers and religious fruitcakes. I know exactly what they would say. "If you talk to kids about 'safe' drinking, you'll only encourage them! There is no such thing as 'safe' drinking!"

Funny, but I don't recall Jesus turning water into Fanta for the wedding at Canaa. (Maybe he gave them a talking to about 'safe' drinking before he did his little magic trick.) At least he didn't turn it into ouzo.

 

[newguy]

A sad fact of life. The country is just full of idiots. Just seems to be brought to our attention more every day.

And the majority of idiots blame some other idiot.

Shame they cannot take responsibilty for their own actions.

Agree get back to the beer. Leave all the idiots to self destruction.

But this stupidity usually ends up affecting all other sensible people like it or not.

The world is full of idiots. A week ago a guy beheaded a fellow passenger on a cross-country bus here in Canada. It took less than a day for some moron in the media to re-float the idea of a knife registry/sale restriction.

A long time ago my best friend damn near died of alcohol poisoning too, but I'm just as guilty as the 15 year-old's friends regarding getting medical help. He was the kind of guy who couldn't just have a couple drinks. He had to drink to excess, and he wasn't happy unless he was the most extreme one at the party. At the time, we also had access to hooch (home-made spirits). His favourite thing was to pour a huge glass full of straight hooch, then make little upside down mushroom clouds of coke in it. This stuff was ~80+% too. 10-15 drops and his drink was properly "mixed". One night, already pissed, he made another one of his signature drinks and proceeded to chug it despite our pleas not to. He ran outside and puked it all back up, which probably saved him. After he passed out, we took turns watching him to make sure that he was still breathing. The hospital was just across the street and about half of us were tempted to take him there. In hindsight we probably should have.

That was also the last time he ever did that. He ended up giving himself a bleeding ulcer which is probably a blessing. He sure curbed his drinking from that day on.

I can't help but think that the only difference between my best friend and the kid that just died is their respective gag reflexes. We didn't haul our friend to the hospital despite the fact that we should have. That kid's friends were obviously in the same situation. Now, unfortunately, they have to live with the knowledge that they could have helped him but they didn't.

 

[Bribie G]

As a teenager in the UK we went to a party of a mate who lived at a big golf club (Dad was manager and they lived in a residence at the club itself). On the way out we had to file through the bar area to get out of the house and my mate Ralph pocketed a couple of bottles of scotch on the way through.
Walking back to town we (3) skulled the bottles.

Some time later I had become detached from mates and ended up in a paddock looking up at a huge illuminated sign saying " 1500 homes, school and shops to be built on this site".
Fell over backwards. Rolled around somewhat in the mud. It started to rain. An hour or so later, covered with mud and just my eyes showing I staggered into a police station to ask directions.

Later, in the cell, my dad arrived (My dad was a police sergeant). "You've been out with that lot again, haven't you??) :lol: :lol:

I missed 3 days high school due to 3 days vomiting and to this day even the smell of spirits makes me nauseous.

It's a case of more things change, the more they stay the same. Lucky I didn't kill myself, and sorry for the poor kid's family.