Talk:Jonestown

Potassium chloride is not an oral poison.

It's a form of nutrient. It's in many multivitamins, and any pharmacy as well as most department stores sell it as a nutrional supplement. It takes only a cursory glance at the wiki link it even points to for a laymen to figure out. Yes, in large amounts it will kill you. But so will "hydrogen dioxide" or, as we all like to call it, H20. Water. I do not dispute that this substance may have been found in the vat, but one must take into consideration the LD50 of potassium chloride is around 7 ounces for an adult. This is quite a *large* amount. Potassium cyanide on the other hand is about ~500 times more potent by weight.

At the very least I suggest it should be mentioned that this would make for an incredibly weak poison, especially considering it's relative potency compared to the other chemicals in the concoction, i.e. diazepam, various barbiturates (especially lethal when mixed with the former), potassium cyanide (extremely lethal in itself), etc. It seems to me that it may have only been a biproduct of the cyanide creation or degradation, but that's original research. However, proving that potassium (chloride) is a nutrient is not.

As an injectable formula potassium chloride becomes much more deadly, it is used in lethal injections for this reason. However, I am of the understanding that the Flavor-aid vat was used orally. It is likely that it contributed little, if nothing to the carnage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.19.179.29 (talk) 01:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, the dose makes the poison; potassium chloride is about as poisonous as table salt. The cite for its identification as a poison is Rebecca Moore, who probably does not qualify as an RS on the issue of whether potassium chloride is "a strong poison" (her words). I would consider her a reliable reporter of the analysis findings, however (i.e., that potassium chloride was reported to have been included in the punch). Even this seems a bit questionable to me given that potassium, sodium, chloride, and cyanide are all electrolytes; you can't really say in what combinations they might have originally been introduced. Probably no more can be said without running up against wp:nor. NillaGoon (talk) 00:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

CIA first to report of mass suicide

For many years, there was a mention of how the mass suicide was first recorded on a CIA log early in the morning of the day after. I can't find it now in the article and I checked the conspiracy article for it and it wasn't there either though it would have naturally fit in. Why was it removed? Was it not sourced properly? Thanks. --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Some information not included

This is generally a good and informative article, but there are two pieces of information that I think are missing. Firstly there are several mentions of people bequeathing their money to the Communist party of the Soviet Union, was this actually carried out after their deaths? Did the Soviets accept the money? Or were these "wills" ignored? Secondly there seems to be no mention of what happened to the bodies of the people who died in the event. I assume they weren't just left there, were they? Were the bodies buried in Guyana or were they flown back to the US? Or something else? This seems to be left out completely. That's about all I can think of for now, if anyone can shed light on these issues and add them to the article that'd be good. --Hibernian (talk) 07:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that this would be a good addition. I lived in the Bay Area for several years, and I know there's a cemetery in Oakland where hundreds of the victims are buried — basically, a mass grave for everyone whose remains weren't claimed after the bodies were brought back to the U.S. (They had been first flown from Guyana to some air force base here in the States.) I don't remember the name of the cemetery or the exact number of unclaimed bodies put in there, though.

I have no idea whether the wills were honored. Mwelch (talk) 10:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, well can you add some of that information to the article? I'm sure this stuff must be written in some book. --Hibernian (talk) 18:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, there must be a reference to cite somewhere. I'll try to find some time to look for some. Mwelch (talk) 02:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

If it helps, a chap at the NSA just compiled a bunch of DOD documents on this topic at http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/document-friday-the-jonestown-massacre/ 68.52.244.134 (talk) 23:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't know if the wills were honored. Because of very large number of bodies and Jonestown's remote location, the bodies could not be removed for several days. The US Air Force was eventually called in to assist Guyanese Defense Forces. They were shipped to an Air Force base in the U.S. for a while. Some remains went off to relatives who claimed them. Those that went unclaimed were buried in a mass grave in the Bay Area. Mosedschurte (talk) 01:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I just realized that the riots following the results of the Moscone–Milk assassination trial were called 'White Night' riots. I also hadn't realized that these 2 events were separated by not even 2 weeks time. I can't begin to imagine the political/social climate and impact all of this had on southern California. J.Rly (talk) 22:24, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Popular Culture

Mose: I saw that section was blanked because it was obviously too long, but I will "drink the kool aid" and say Jonestown is obviously an element of popular culture right now. Perhaps we may want to consider a short section at the end of the article to that effect with cites?--Yachtsman1 (talk) 18:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Non Natural DISASTER?

The introduction says this was "the largest occurrence of American civil loss of life during a non-natural disaster since the 9//11 attack." The use of the word 'disaster' implies an accident or something having gone wrong or amiss in some way. If someone attempts suicide, one would assume they are successful if they do indeed die. Does the word 'disaster' fit into the category of an act that was correctly borne out? Perhaps the opening could be changed into something like "the largest occurrence of American civil loss of life during a non-natural OCCURRENCE since the 9//11 attack." Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrZoolook (talk • contribs) 14:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that is a good compromise, what I might say is the Single Greatest "Deliberate" loss of life until September 11th, since there have been other Pre-9/11 US-related events (the General Slocum accident for one) where more people died than Jonestown, but all of those were definite "accidents".

Although I think that when they mean "Non-Natural Disaster" I think they strictly mean outside of a "Natural Disaster" and not that Jonestown was a disaster in itself

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.40.217 (talk) 17:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)