Sure, but so is society on our psychological health in general. Apparently, we're so anxious that a lot of us subconsciously feel we need to drink in order to just have an actual conversation.

Social anxiety is the true poison in society. Without it, we wouldn't drink nearly as much.

I have nuanced takes that don't agree with the take that I just wrote, but I find there to be a kernel of truth in it. I've fought social anxiety for years, and started out clubbing sober when I was 17. I did start drinking around 18 but mostly out of curiosity. It was only around the age of 30 that I really noticed that by then I did it to alleviate social anxiety. It caught me off-guard since my teenage self would scoff at the idea of it. I'd never need alcohol to alleviate my social anxiety, I'd just grit through it and talk to whomever I want. I think I just became a bit comfortable and soft. It's easy-ish for me to switch back though due to the reference experiences I have being a teen, dealing with social anxiety sober. So that's a huge blessing. Not everyone is that lucky.

Whataboutism sidetracking from the topic at hand: the normalization of etoh consumption and alcoholism.

> and someone tried to bring it to market today it would never fly

In a regulatory domain? Perhaps not; however, we did try prohibition. It didn't go well.

> Should have skull and crossbones on it.

Which didn't work. So some people go the idea to poison it. Then people learned to re-distill it to avoid the blindness it would otherwise cause.

> Makes about as much sense as huffing gasoline

Most people don't regularly drink to the kinds of excess that would make this an apt comparison.

>however, we did try prohibition. It didn't go well

... Because it was already there. The hypothetical would imply a world where people weren't already high functioning addicts

It also has to assume the average, or even uneducated, person couldn't whip up a reasonably good batch of the stuff over a week's time on their own, given ordinary supplies and equipment found in their own home already. But that isn't true of this particular drug.

Nah, it is just one of many wonders found in mother natures kitchen. Like all things, moderation is in your best life.

It makes far more sense than huffing gas.

It makes the most sense a couple maybe few times a year.

The worst thing to do is over hype the downsides. People tune out and then have no real guidance to draw from.

I admire your passion, but it's not such a strong argument. Lots of medicines are also poisons. Oxygen is kinda a poison. What alcohol is is a drug.

In Italy, cigarette packs carry shocking pictures of diseased lungs, tumors, and other severe health effects, yet they fail to deter smokers. It’s essentially a cultural problem.

> yet they fail to deter smokers.

The existing ones, sure - you get used to it. But for non-smokers, that's a visible indicator of what you're bringing on yourself if you start smoking, so it has a deterring value. It helps you to present an abstract idea into something palpable that you can't ignore that easily.

Something has deterred smokers: the overall rate of adults who smoke has fallen from 50% to 25% in the last 50 years [0] - the source gives measures by gender and birth cohort, but you can aggregate them any way you want to see a big drop off.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2566030/

I have been thinking why not take similar actions against alcohol as with tobacco. Add warning labels, increase taxes to huge number. Maybe ban anything but 94% pure stuff. No more any type of flavourings like they did with menthol.

Maybe. But zyn is a thing breathing new life into tobacco companies

It's poison... developed by fungi to kill bacteria. Largely irrelevant to humans.

That's an unusual definition of "irrelevant".

I've drank a lot of alcohol as a human and "irrelevant" is precisely how I'd describe it.

For scale context, the covid 19 vaccines killed almost as many people as alcohol yearly. Yet that one is "medicine" but alcohol is "poison"? Give me a break.

Of course there are morons who get killed by just about anything. Even water poisoning is a thing, and people HAVE died of it.

Sinners will die regardless of substance, because the wages of sin are death.