At least 28 people have died and 60 more have become sick from drinking tainted liquor in India, according to officials who announced the deaths on Tuesday.
Officials say the deaths occurred in the Ahmedabad and Botad districts of Gujarat state, one of four states in India that bans the sale and manufacturing of alcohol.
Several alleged bootleggers have been arrested in connection to the sale of the tainted liquor, says Ashish Gupta, Gujarat state’s police chief.
In areas where alcohol sales are prohibited, bootleggers often make liquor themselves and sometimes spike it with chemicals to make its effects more powerful, but those chemicals can be dangerous for human consumption. Sometimes methanol, or methyl alcohol, is sold as drinking alcohol, which can also cause death.
The prohibition also creates a black market for bootleggers who can make large profits by selling massive quantities of liquor without paying taxes.
The event is reflective of the United States’ own experiences with prohibition. From 1920 to 1933 when alcohol sales were illegal federally in the United States, it is estimated that up to 50,000 people died and up to an additional 100,000 were paralyzed from drinking tainted or improperly distilled liquor. Some of that was brought on after the government purposely poisoned industrial alcohol in an attempt to discourage bootleggers from denaturing it and turning it into drinkable alcohol.
Like in parts of India today, it also created a massive black market that led to astronomical profits for organized crime.