Organized crime was hijacking/stealing large amounts of industrially produced ethyl alcohol (which had legitimate uses other than consumption) and selling it at "speak-easies". Some government toady came up with the brilliant idea of poisoning large supplies of the stuff not intended for consumption with methanol. They hoped to discourage criminals from diverting it to the black market. Idiots.  

All that happened was the Mafia stole it, made bootleg out of it and sold it anyway causing the deaths of at least 10,000 people before the government stopped doing it. Needless to say, that was a rather large black eye for the administration and contributed to the end of Prohibition. 

NOTE: One of the motivations for enacting Prohibition was that the feds observed how nations in Eastern Europe were having huge problems with alcoholism. They wanted to prevent the same from happening in the U.S. - it was not rocket-science to figure out what would happen. 

The correlation to what happened in NY when Gov. Andrew "Murderhouse" Cuomo decided in his infinite wisdom that it was a great idea to force nursing homes et al, to accept COVID infected people as residents (killing thousands needlessly) is obvious.   

In translating Libberish  the word "help" (in regard to government) translates into a word for pro-creation. 

Example: We are from the government and we are here to **** you. 

The view of the government officials portrayed by writers like Robert Heinlein, AC Von Vogt, Fritz Leiber and Thomas Harris ("they are weak and unruly and believe in nothing...") is much closer to the truth than the noble, courageous public servants seen in most T.V. shows.  

It takes a special type of horrifying stupidity combined with grotesque insensitivity for government officials to reach decisions like those. 

Most normal people would never even consider doing anything as recklessly stupid as either of the above two things - which demonstrates that we are elevating people with sub-normal intellect/morality to positions of government leadership and have been for a long time.