In December 2016, 74 people died in a mass methanol poisoning in the Russian city of Irkutsk. Precipitated by drinking counterfeit surrogate alcohol, the Associated Press news agency called its high death toll "unprecedented in its scale".
Russian use of non-traditional surrogate alcohols rose rapidly in the early 2010s due to ongoing economic difficulties. Costing less than government-regulated vodka, surrogates reached an estimated height of twenty percent of the country's alcohol consumption by 2016. These products were often nearly pure alcohol that could be diluted to a rough approximation of vodka, and were commonly available from supermarkets, strategically placed vending machines, and other shops. In the Irkutsk incident, the victims drank scented bath lotion that was mislabeled as containing drinkable ethanol.
In the aftermath of the poisoning, regulations on surrogate alcohols were tightened around the country. Politicians announced a temporary ban on non-food items with more than 25 percent alcohol, and the legal minimum price of vodka was lowered.
Causes and event
In the 2010s, Russia's economy suffered from a financial crisis, depressed oil prices, and international sanctions put into place during the Ukrainian crisis. With less disposable income, citizens were forced to take drastic measures. In 2017, for instance, approximately half of the country's population was growing fruits and vegetables to supplement their diet, caused in part by a doubling in food prices in the preceding two years.
For alcohol, Russian citizens—already one of the highest consumers per capita in the world—turned to surrogates, a cheaper but unregulated segment of the market. Although the country's overall consumption of all kinds of alcohol had been in decline since 2005, as of November 2016, surrogates made up twenty percent of the total alcohol consumed in the country, and their consumption was itself increasing by twenty percent each year. Experts estimated that greater than ten million Russians routinely purchased such alcohol. Such a widespread consumption of unregulated alcohol led to recurring alcohol poisonings. Russia's government agency devoted to consumer protection, Rospotrebnadzor, recorded about 36,000 such poisonings in the first nine months of 2016, resulting in over 9,000 deaths. Nevertheless, the death toll in the single Irkutsk methanol poisoning incident was unusually high.
The hawthorn-scented bath lotion (boyaryshnik) that caused the Irkutsk mass methanol poisoning was purchased as a drink because its cost was half that of the lowest-price vodka. Although the bottles were typically half the size of traditional vodka, their alcohol content was such that they could be diluted to a similar alcohol by volume. These bath lotions were widely available in supermarkets, shops, and vending machines around Russia and were not subject to any legal age requirement; the alcohol excise tax, which had been increased as part of an anti-alcohol effort in 2009; or other restrictions placed in recent years to help curb alcohol consumption in the country. The vending machines were particularly problematic: they were often deliberately placed near poorer areas of Russian cities to appeal to those seeking a cheap alternative to regular alcohol. Moreover, unlike legal alcohol sales the vending machines were available at all hours of the day or night. They were also highly profitable. "Everybody knew that it was not bath oil", one individual later told The New York Times. "That label was just meant to fend off the inspectors".
The fatal batch of lotion involved in the December 2016 mass poisoning was made with methanol (methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, CH3OH), which is poisonous to the central nervous system and other parts of the body. Methanol is cheaper than ethanol (ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, CH3CH2OH), the alcohol found in vodka and other alcoholic drinks. The two alcohols are similar in many respects and cannot readily be distinguished, and their contents differed from the labels on the bottles, which indicated that they contained ethanol. An investigation later revealed that the methanol was usually used in the local production of windshield washer fluid, known locally as antifreeze.
According to early reports on 19 December, a total of 57 people were hospitalized, with 49 dying. The victims were described as being poor residents of the Novo-Lenino neighborhood in Irkutsk, primarly ranging in age between 35 and 50. As days went by, subsequent reports increased the number of impacted people: first to 55 deaths (with a total of 94 affected), then 62 (with 107 affected), 77 (number of affected not given), and 78.