Review of meths could lead to removal of poison

Christchurch intensive care specialist Geoffrey Shaw says plans by an environmental regulator to review the registration of methylated spirits in New Zealand may offer a belated chance to stop the deliberate addition to the industrial alcohol of a poison, which kills people.

"We've got a toxic substance being added to the alcohol to deliberately harm people -- it's utterly bizarre, and totally against everything which we're supposed to be doing in terms of trying to reduce the risk of environmental toxins," he told NZPA.

The Ministry of Health has proposed the re-assessment of meths -- even though it was the ministry itself which held the decision-making power 30 months ago when it brought in a new regulation in October 1999 to reduce the allowable level of highly poisonous methanol in meths from 5 per cent to 2 per cent.

Critics of the compromise measure alleged at the time the 2 per cent level was retained only so that methylated spirits would not be "caught" by excise duties. Because the meths was made -- theoretically -- not fit for human consumption by the methanol, it qualified as an industrial alcohol, exempt from excise taxes applied to whisky, gin, and other alcoholic drinks.

Toxic Substances Board chairman Professor Robin Ferrier was reported in 1997 to have described the 2 per cent level as a "compromise figure" which would mean that meths would remain free of excise tax. Other experts said less harmful ingredients could have been substituted to qualify meths for exemption from the taxation.

"I spoke to someone from the Toxic Substances Board which came up with the recommendation and asked on what evidence they had based their recommendation," Dr Shaw said today.

"He said: 'Well, it was really quite simple. We thought we should leave it in, and if 4 per cent was bad, we thought we'd split the difference'.

"That's appallingly bad," Dr Shaw said.

"The equivalent of about 40 people have died over the past decade solely or wholly from drinking meths."

Methanol was a known poison, yet it had been decided to keep on adding it to meths, simply to avoid an alcohol tax. If an individual poisoned a drink in their fridge to stop someone drinking it, they could be prosecuted for setting a man-trap or on a criminal charge of manslaughter. Dr Shaw said legislators should apply the same legal stance to placing methanol where people could be deliberately or accidentally poisoned, because methanol was so poisonous it could never be safely consumed.

"Regulatory agencies know there are people who drink meths for the alcohol content, so why do they keep adding a poison to it?"

Some doctors, coroners and social workers had been calling for years for methanol to be removed, but a previous campaign to have methanol completely removed from meths -- after a cluster of deaths among meths drinkers in 1996 -- was stymied when the then regulatory agency, the Toxic Substances Board, advised the Ministry of Health only to reduce the methanol level.

Methylated spirits containing more than 0.1 per cent methanol has to be labelled as containing methanol, and must contain a bittering agent to make it unpalatable, and a dye when sold at retail.

Now the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) has said methylated spirits should take top priority in a list of toxic chemicals to have their use in New Zealand re-assessed.

Erma chief executive Bas Walker has proposed that methylated spirits be made "priority 1" on his priority re-assessment list because of the continuing evidence of both intentional abuse and unintentional harm.

Despite the fact that it was sold only in containers with child-resistant caps, in the past year the National Poisons Centre had received 84 inquiries for children and 68 for adults exposed to alcohol-based household fluids, in most cases methylated spirits.

According to discussion on the Erma website for revisions to the priority list -- which has not yet been published -- the poisons centre cases represented only involuntary exposure.

"Intentional abuse of methylated spirits is a well-known occurrence," the website said. Deliberate drinking of methylated spirits led to increased illness and, less frequently, to death, though collection of specific statistics would require more work.

Relevant criteria included the fact that meths was widely available and accessible, exposure to it was both accidental and deliberate, it had a toxic substance added to it, and repeated exposure could cause death.

By itself, methanol can lead to a painful death, with victims going blind, suffering great pain, and seizures.

A spokeswoman for an oil company has previously said the reason methanol was still used in New Zealand -- when it was not allowed in meths in Australia or the United States -- was that specifications for methylated spirits were controlled by Customs and Excise taxation officials.

- NZPA

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