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Killing yourself with solvents (Alcohols and Hydrocarbons I have loved)

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Cerebus:

--- Quote from: MK14 on May 13, 2020, 10:47:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on May 13, 2020, 06:43:14 pm ---So "methylated spirits" may actually not contain any methanol nowadays.

--- End quote ---

This article:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1241216

Seems to explain (I've also added my own words/explanation/details, so best to read original article, if that bothers you), that purposely adding poison(s) to methylated spirits, is nasty/criminal-like, because in many cases of poisoning by it. It was children, who accidentally found (e.g. a bottle of it, in a low cupboard, then defeated the mandatory child proof lid) and injested it.

With serious risk of death and/or blindness. ('and' because blindness can be earlier symptom, before death).
Therefore, it has been banned (I think), by a number of countries. The UK NOT being mentioned in those countries.
It seems to say, the US, Australia (already ban it) with New Zealand (at the time of the article), seriously considering, outlawing it (limit something like 0.1% Methanol).

--- End quote ---

Yeah, "meths" was made undrinkable so that it would provide a source of 'pure enough' ethanol for things that need ethanol (some lamps, some varnishes and so on) without attracting the massive taxes applied to drinkable alcohol. Many industrial uses of ethanol become prohibitively expensive if you have to pay booze taxes on the alcohol you use. So we then get a regulatory framework that mandates the deliberate addition of poisons to denatured alcohol if you want to use it for legitimate processes, all because of the calvinist/presbyterian/puritan idea that 'fun is bad' therefore we must have punitive taxation on alcohol. Nowadays it is wrapped up as a 'health' intervention, but most people would drink no more booze if the tax vanished overnight. So we have the stupid situation where the government sets out to deliberately poison people who try to have fun without paying tax on it - it sounds like something out of dystopian fiction when you boil it down like that.

Realistically, just adding the bittering agent that is already added would be enough to make meths something only the truly desperate would drink and would do it without deliberately adding something that we know will kill or seriously damage the people desperate enough to treat meths as an intoxicant or consuming it accidentally.

The newer formulations seem better in this respect. Isopropanol is a permitted food additive and is little more toxic than ethanol. MEK is more toxic (i.e. it has a lower LD50 concentration), but there are biochemical pathways that will safely detoxify it as long as you don't get too high a dose (About 20-40% of ingested MEK is excreted simply by breathing it out, 5% gets excreted unchanged in the urine and the rest gets either oxidised or reduced by various variants of CYP450 in the liver and gets excreted in that form complexed as glucuronides or sulphates. The point you're usually in trouble is where your body runs out of supplies of glucuronic acid, a factor in poisoning with many substances that you can happily detoxify at low doses e.g. ethanol and paracetamol.). Methanol is the real killer as the detoxification pathway itself produces another highly toxic chemical, formaldehyde.

coppercone2:
how about simple green?

and IMO solvent flammability for hobbyists is overrated, use it outside. you need to be alert and cautious for like 5 minutes rather then thinking about DNA damage and shit later

but yes, i like carbon tet and ethylene, when I need something special, but I won't use it for something standard

btw: degrease tip, especially for gluing. Since you typically sand afterwards, before you sand be sure to use a scowering pad, it does WONDERS and improves the utility of standard solvents greatly. Don't be too lazy. And you can always degrease in stages, to minimize use of toxic solvents.

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: coppercone2 on May 14, 2020, 01:17:52 am ---and IMO solvent flammability for hobbyists is overrated, use it outside.

--- End quote ---

It's not the using it that's the point of concern, it's the storing. Most people capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time know how not to set themselves on fire when they've got an open bottle of solvent nearby, but how many of us keep our assorted selection of solvents in a proper fire proof solvents cupboard like you'd be required to at work? It's actually seriously on my list of things that I really ought to acquire. I've got enough flammable, low flash point liquids in this house that they could be a real cause of concern if I was unfortunate/stupid enough to have a fire start in the house. It's the kind of thing that turns a small, learning-experience type fire into a "well, I didn't really like that house anyway" kind of fire.

I've been in a small, easily extinguished household fire. Things went from "I know how to put this out" to "I can't see, I can't breathe, I'm just going to shut the door on it and go outside and call the fire brigade" in less time than it took me to type this sentence. Not something I want to repeat or would wish on others; well, most others anyway.

MK14:
It is amazing, all the biochemical processes, that go on in the human body. Hopefully these days, when they next invent the new "Methylated Spirits", (just like you described), it WON'T contain any real toxins/poisons. Just stuff to put people off from drinking it.
Apparently, lots of people in the US (probably other countries as well), buy Alcoholic mouthwash (and/or vanilla extract , as it is dissolved in ethanol), as a way to get drunk, with little money available to buy it. Or are too young to buy the real thing legally, yet.

Example links:
https://www.addictioncampuses.com/alcohol/drunk-from-mouthwash/
https://kidsactivitiesblog.com/119727/drunk-off-vanilla-extract/


--- Quote from: Cerebus on May 13, 2020, 11:56:38 pm ---all because of the calvinist/presbyterian/puritan idea that 'fun is bad' therefore we must have punitive taxation on alcohol.

--- End quote ---

Sometimes taxes, end up costing the consumer, many times as much as the tax was suppose to be.

E.g. A £15.01 (£0.01 over the £15 limit) parcel from China, could be charged an extra 0.2 pence VAT (UK purchase tax), in theory.
In practice, they decided to charge the VAT (and import duties, in some cases) on the total (without subtracting the £15 "tax free" bit), so you need to pay an extra £3.01
But, the post office, ADDS on another £8.00 handling charge.
So the 0.2 pence (£0.002) (Since we are allowed items for "free", up to a maximum of £15), is actually charged at around £3.01 (for the £0.002 bit) plus £8.00 (Post office + usually more if alternative delivery service) = £11.01

duak:
I started my career in the 70s at a company that used trichloro-something-or-other to clean PCBs.  They had stainless trays for manual cleaning under a fume hood for safety but didn't give any training nor did they post any instructions, other than a reminder to put the lids back on the trays.  If you didn't, 5 liters would evaporate before you knew it.  It would dissolve polystyrene caps and take some part labeling off if you weren't careful.

In the mid 80s I moved to a small company and with a real can-do attitude got a 5 gal drum of the same stuff to clean the few boards we built.  After about 5 years, that drum became a problem to the company so I just took it home and put it in the garage.  Great for cleaning car and bike parts and getting grease off clothes.  One day I went out to get a splash of it to clean up a spot and found that it had all evaporated through a small crack in the flexible pull-out spout.  The garage was not air tight and I never smelt it and I have two normal (??) kids so I think I'm OK...  I also grew up in the age of leaded gasoline and surrounded by tobacco usage so it would be hard to say what caused what anyway.

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