Discussion

US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

ChrisArchitect: [dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298

ryandamm: Missed in the previous discussion: methanol is irrelevant. Grain based ferments have essentially zero methanol.(And methanol risk is a function of its concentration relative to ethanol — the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!) even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol, and it’s not all that well concentrated in a distillation due to azeotropes (which also says that throwing out the heads doesn’t help that much).Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol. The biggest risk in home distilling is fire.

cucumber3732842: Was it missed or intentionally downplayed/ignored because people came into the discussion with priors that they were eager to maintain?Seems like these sorts of "yes it could be unsafe in theory but the reality of physics and incentives make this mostly irrelevant" type things get missed far too often certain parts of the internet to be coincidence.That said, the fact that it dropped on a weekend did it no favors the first time around.

ch4s3: Speaking as a brewer, I can tell you that tons of people who should know better actually believe the methanol thing and will even quote some sciency words to make their argument. I think its a case of bad information coming from black market distilling being propagated uncritically. People who know better (licensed distillers) have no incentive to argue against it.

user20180120: Anyone seen thisWhy the Amish Have Never Needed a Gas Station — The Plant That Fuels Any Engine They Buried in 1937https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl9peJKkf1M

semiquaver: > [Judge Edith Jones] also said that under the government’s logic, Congress could criminalize virtually any in-home activity Well, yeah. This is essentially the holding in Wickard v. Filburn, which seems to be in tension with this decision (overturning that would be great but it’s not the role of the circuit courts of appeal to do preemptively)

joshstrange: Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298

ckemere: Wasn’t great. Would love a second attempt focused on distilling not individualist v collectivist or immigration.(Except for relevant connections around sharing your creations with neighbors and/or internationally inspired novel spirits.)

wing-_-nuts: I am not really a fan of liquor, but I do like the idea of having skills which are universally valuable.If you air dropped me into a random village in Africa I doubt I could 'code for cassava' but I could almost certainly make a living if I knew how to set up a basic pot still and safely create booze.

bsimpson: Do this one next:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._RaichThe Supreme Court somehow held that the feds can regulate what you do in your own home (in this case, growing marijuana for personal use) because it could have a butterfly effect on the interstate price. (Constitutionally, the feds can only regulate _interstate_ commerce.)

GenerWork: It's been way too long since I've taken a political science course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the entire country, or just the area that the 5th Court of Appeals covers?

malfist: Prior to this year, the entire country. Today, thanks to SCOTUS shenanigans, it likely only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit, LA. But who knows, hard to keep up with the game of calvinball the SCOTUS is playing.

dcrazy: You seem to be confusing precedent-setting decisions with nationwide injunctions.

swiftcoder: I'd imagine one wants to litigate Wickard v. Filburn in its entirety, rather than just the downstream Gonzales v. Raich

mothballed: That would also invalidate the civil rights act, as the (similar) 19th century CRA was already struck down because the 14th amendment binds against discrimination by public not private actors. The reason why the modern CRAs weren't also struck is because they rested on the laurels of Wickard v Filburn declaring the CRA (this time) is about regulating "interstate" commerce.

gmiller123456: Appeals court decisions generally only apply to their own jurisdiction. But they obviously hold a lot of weight when cited in others.

jcims: Bought and rigged up a 'hand sanitizer plant' about five months into COVID. Populated the thing with thermocouples, load cells and automation with nodered on raspberry pi and a bunch of esp32s flashed with tasmota doing sensing and control. Everything talked over mqtt. Great little architecture and having it highly automated allowed me to focus on the parts that were less easily controlled for.Dashboard: https://imgur.com/a/so7iZJXSanitizer run: https://imgur.com/a/iWDlNfbQuite a lot of fun actually.

jmyeet: I looked at the actual decision [1] and didn't see Filburn mentioned once. I find that odd. Filburn [2] was a controversial and far-reaching decision that said that the Federal government's ability to regulate interstate commerce extended to people growing wheat on their own property for their own use. The rationale was that by growing wheat you weren't participating in the interstate wheat market. That seems like a wild interpretation to me but it's Supreme Court precedent at this point.So I found this footnote:> The government does not challenge the district court’s Commerce Clause analysis on appeal. Accordingly, any such argument is forfeited, and we do not address it.That's interesting. Here's a legal analysis that does bring up the Commerce Clause and Filburn [3]. I really wonder why the government didn't raise this issue.I knew just from the headline this was going to be a 5th Circuit decision, and it was. This is the same circuit that is perfectly fine to override "state's rights" for other issues.[1]:https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pd...[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn[3]: https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/reviving-the-commerce-clause-one...

mothballed: Sub saharan africa already has a very large informal distilling network (especially of bananas), a niche largely reserved for women in many regions (not sure for what the reason is for that exactly).

lenerdenator: It'll be interesting to see how many people get methanol poisoning from trying their hand at it without doing the research properly. That being said, so long as it's for private or non-profit use, I don't really see the harm here.

rtkwe: The ruling only has binding precedent in the 5th Circuit, other circuits aren't bound to follow it. Formerly this kind of ruling would come with a nationwide injunction to force the issue but now that those are severely curtailed by the Supreme Court it's only binding to the courts under the jurisdiction of the 5th circuit.

jppope: > Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcoholPretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from drinking it, but then they hurt a bunch of people and never faced any consequences...

superjan: Might as well plug this recent Criminal Podcast episode: https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-358-the-formula-3-27-2026TLDL: During prohibition, US government required adding 5% methanol to industrial alcohol, hoping that this would stop bootleggers from selling it as liquor. It was sold anyway, resulting in many deaths.

aqme28: To be fair, we still add 5-10% methanol to industrial alcohol. But also a bunch of bitterants to discourage use.

mordae: Are adding it or just distill both because it's cheaper?