Yeah, helps them ignore how pissed off they are at working in environments with toxic air. I question the legitimacy of your friend's story, sounds like a load of shit to me. Don't think any company would **break the law by allowing alcohol consumption by employees operating dangerous equipment** as an "experiment". If some dude got wasted, then blew himself up while welding, and then word got to his family that *he was told by his boss to knock back some whiskey at the beginning of his shift,* how do you think that would turn out for the employer? Why open themselves up to liability like this when they could instead simply pay some outside research firm to conduct this experiment under controlled conditions where *reliable data* could be gathered?