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  • 2016-12-23 (xsd:date)
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  • Does U.S. Law Require Alcohol to Be Radioactive? (en)
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  • The claim that Liquor and wine are illegal in the U.S. unless they are radioactive stems from an excerpt that appears in multiple books authored by Berkeley physicist Richard Muller, including Energy for Future Presidents. Muller also posted the text of this claim on a Quora thread What are some mind-blowing facts that sound like BS but are actually true? Here are the points Muller laid out in that post: The science in the above-stated claim is an accurate explanation for why alcohol derived from plants would be radioactive whereas synthetic alcohol derived from petroleum products would not. What is not supported by any available evidence are the two non-scientific claims associated with this story: That synthetic alcohol is prohibited in beverages and that they federal government tests beverages for compliance based on this law. The only official policy statement that directly touches this topic is a memo, termed a compliance policy guide issued in response to a 1957 internal inquiry between the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms taxation and enforcement offices: Based on this inquiry, the FDA issued the following policy statement, which does not outlaw the use of synthetic alcohol (derived from petroleum) so long as it is labeled accordingly: We asked the Tobacco and Alcohol Tax Bureau, the group that would currently be in charge of enforcing such a ban, if any current laws that would prohibit the use of synthetic alcohol in beverages. Thomas Hogue, the Director of Congressional and Public Affairs for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, provided this response: He added that it is up to the FDA to determine what is safe, but up to the Tobacco and Alcohol Tax Bureau to prevent consumers from being misled. In that respect, he stated that while it would be legal to use synthetic alcohol, it would have to be labeled accordingly: There is, as well, an established protocol to test a carbon-based substance for its relative fraction of petroleum versus biologically derived material, and this test, ASTM D6866, is indeed based on carbon-14 radioactivity. However, this is not a test that the Tobacco and Alcohol Tax Bureau utilizes, per Hogue: Ultimately, this is a cool bit of counterintuitive science that presents a less common use for carbon-14 analysis. However, the evidence that this scientific information is currently used by the United States federal government to prevent synthetic alcohol in beverages is lacking. (en)
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