Jean Lanfray

Jean Lanfray (c. 1873– 26 February 1906) was a French labourer in Switzerland who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two children in a drunken rage on the afternoon of 28 August 1905 in Commugny, Switzerland.[1][2] It was later revealed by police that he had drunk an excessive amount of wine and hard liquors that morning, along with two ounces of absinthe. However, due to the moral panic against absinthe in Europe at that time, his murders were blamed solely on the influence of absinthe, leading to a petition to ban absinthe in Switzerland shortly after the murders. The petition received 82,000 signatures and absinthe was banned in Vaud shortly thereafter. A 1908 constitutional referendum led to absinthe being banned in all of Switzerland, and absinthe was banned in most European countries (and the United States) before the outbreak of World War I.

  1. ^ Hicks, Jesse (5 October 2010). "The Devil in a Little Green Bottle: A History of Absinthe". Chemical Heritage Magazine. 28 (3): 26–31. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  2. ^ Zolotow, Maurice (June 1971). "Absinthe" (PDF). Playboy. Archived from the original on 24 March 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2014 – via La Fée Verte.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)