Originally Posted by cyccommute
Ethanol is a poison. It's just slower than methanol. Ingest too much of it over a short time span and it causes respiratory arrest. Colorado has had at several deaths in the last year die this way.
Interestingly, table salt (NaCl) has an LD50 (dose at which 50% of those tested will die) of 3000mg / kilogram of body weight, while ethanol has an LD50 of 7060mg/kg, making salt about twice as toxic as ethanol. The poison, they say, is in the dose.
Ethanols problem isn't that it is toxic, it is that something about it inspires people to consume far too much of it, far too fast (quite a problem recently in my native town of Ft. Collins, as you mentioned). If salt made you feel like booze does, we'd be seeing a lot more deaths from it. Actually, there are very few 'non-food' chemicals that wouldn't injure or kill us if consumed with the fervor of ethanol.
Anyway, at some point its just a metaphysical debate about what constitutes 'poison', but in general you are right, ethanol isn't perfectly safe.
I use large quantities of methanol in the production of biodiesel (we buy in 55 gallon drums), and I'm comfortable with its use. We always work with it outdoors, or in poweffully ventilated garages, we use sealed reactors that limit vapor escape, and we always wear neoprene gloves while using it. Interestingly methanol goes through latex like it was tissue paper, so latex gloves don't help. Also interestingly, methanol passes right through most respirators, even those meant for solvents. You need a delivered air system for safe exposure to methanol vapors. We don't use any air system, and keep ourselves safe by limited vapor production in the first place. No one in our group has ever experienced a symptom that we attributed to methanol exposure, though a fellow in another group (who was using a highly non-recommended open top reactor) peered into his reactor, accidentally breathed in, got a big hit of methanol, and proceeded to have a pretty miserable few days. He's ok, but it was a close call.
Anyway, I suppose my point is that methanol is OK to use, as long as you keep its effects in consideration. Use gloves, use it outside, don't get it on your skin, and don't breath the fumes. There are safer cleaners available, so I'd only use methanol if its the only thing I had lying around.
peace,
sam