Drinking The Kool-Aid - Jonestown Massacre

Jonestown Massacre

In the Jonestown cult suicide, Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, had persuaded followers to move to Guyana and found the commune of Jonestown. In November 1978, faced with exposure of some of his misdeeds, he had the visiting U.S. Representative Leo Ryan killed and ordered the residents to commit suicide by drinking a flavored beverage laced with potassium cyanide. Those unable to comply, such as infants, and those unwilling to comply, received involuntary injections. Roughly 918 people died.

Present-day descriptions of the event often refer to the beverage not as Kool-Aid but as Flavor Aid, a less-expensive product reportedly found at the site. Kraft Foods, the maker of Kool-Aid, has stated the same. Implied by this accounting of events is that the reference to the Kool-Aid brand owes exclusively to its being better-known among Americans. Others are less categorical. Both brands are known to have been among the commune's supplies: Film footage shot inside the compound prior to the events of November shows Jones opening a large chest in which boxes of both Flavor Aid and Kool-Aid are visible. Criminal investigators testifying at the Jonestown inquest spoke of finding packets of "cool aid" (sic), and eyewitnesses to the incident are also recorded as speaking of "cool aid" or "Cool Aid." However, it is unclear whether they intended to refer to the actual Kool-Aid–brand drink or were using the name in a generic sense that might refer to any powdered flavored beverage.

It is most likely that both were used in the mass suicide.