There is not a single reason for any human to get access to alcohol to drink.
Edit 1:
Just to add the people who say that banning does not work is like saying banning guns does not work because people is going to find a way to get them or like saying we should not have speed limits because it does not prevent people from speeding. (Their opinions does not make sense to me)
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Hey actually unpopular, nice.
Alcohol killed my father. Ruined multiple relationships of mine. Severely impacted my life in multiple ways. I’ve yet to touch a drop.
I mention all this because if someone was gonna have beef with Alcohol laws, I’d be one of them lol.
If it wasn’t Alcohol the addicts would have found something else. They’re running from mental issues and masking with things to forget.
Banning never works. The issues are almost always more complex and nuanced.
Thank you again for the unpopular opinion!
I’m a (mostly) teetotaler because of my family history. I can’t think of a single family funeral that I’ve been to that didn’t either end up at the deceased’ favorite bar, or with a trip to the liquor store.
I still enjoy my boxed wine, but i have to get Merlot, because you (at least I) can’t really chug Merlot.
Cousin(s): Trip to liquor store, then whichever house had the most room.
Grandparent(s): Visit their favorite bar, then stumble back to the hotel until sober enough for the 7+ hour drive home…
Wish them luck. Interesting to see if they do ban those how It would effect the data they cited.
They only banned a certain type of alcohol not all of it from what I can tell.
Limits tend to work, bans just inspire an underground
Have you studied prohibition in the USA? People don’t stop partaking in vices that are consumable when they become illegal, they just turn to illegal means to obtain them. Prohibition in the 20’s led to the rise of organized crime, drugs won the war on drugs, and in countries where alcohol is banned it just means the rich can partake while the poor go to jail.
Also humans are more than their immediate biological bodies. They are part of communities and cultures that may have deep ties to alcoholic beverages as part of their heritage. British pubs, Christian wine, Mexican pulque, Mongolian Airag, and numerous other examples are essential for cultural and community cohesiveness going back for miilinia. It is ethnocentric of you to dismiss their needs and identity for your convenience.
I say all of this as a son of a junkie. I’ve witnessed first hand the destruction of personal prosperity and the husking of the human soul that comes from imbibing narcotics. I also wish I could put the evils of decadence back in Pandora’s Box, unfortunately it was opened way before civilization existed.
What people consume is none of your fucking business is why.
Says Dracula.
Dracula was known to enjoy a pint or two…
It’s a mystery why no-one has tried this before.
lol, yeah that went reeeeally well. “Banning” anything is the stupidest, least effective way of stopping a thing from happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
You should read your links.
The tl;Dr on that article is that the government is enacting a ban of some specific packaging under a lot of speculation that it’ll reduce kids access to alcohol and reduce underage drinking.
- This ban is targeted at a specific target, focused on a specific demographic.
- This ban hasn’t even been implemented, there’s no evidence of it being effective. Just “the government says it’ll work”
- We have similar bans and controls on vaping and tobacco in the U.S. and it barely dents underage vaping and smoking. That’s pretty good evidence that this is gonna fail for the same reasons.
From the link:
How effective are bans of liquor products?
Well-coordinated enforcement of the ban can check the availability of sachet alcoholic beverages. This should reduce accessibility, consumption and related harms among young people.
The word should is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Where’s the data? Right. There’s isn’t any. Revisit this 5 years after it’s implemented.
That’s merely a ban on one particular packaging format favored by the poor.
It’s a far cry from a complete ban because most people buy ordinary bottles.
This article says, in the headline, that it will help tackle underage drinking. So, first, an assertion that the future will be a particular way is not evidence of the claim the assertion makes. Second, in the article there is a statement that banning a particular consumption method reduced consumption of that method. Sure, I’ll grant that, because duh? But do you understand that the United States spent a great deal of money and lives over years to ban alcohol for adults and it simply did not work? We have the data on this, it’s not even a little obscure.
You should focus on the why, not the what in this problem. Why do people overindulge? Try to focus on that and you reduce the excessive use of most substances.
Neither of these are outright bans, and the results are mixed. If banning worked then Nigeria wouldn’t have 4.6 million people abusing opiates.
So, I agree in the sense that studies have found that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, although I’d advocate for the are to be raised to 25 (when the brain finishes developing).
The problem with banning alcohol is that you can easily make it at home, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can kill yourself or others.
Throughout human history, prohibition on mind altering substances has utterly failed. The brain likes drugs and people will find a way to do them.
All prohibition is going to do is open up a black market and increase the danger to the population by putting money in the hands of criminals.
Portugal did it right and decriminalized everything, then set up a robust rehab infrastructure. They’ve seen problem drug use plumit as a result. Legalization and regulation will always be a better option than prohibition.
Your example of speeding doesn’t fit because drugs, alcohol, and guns are a commodity. You can’t manufacture and smuggle speeding.
You’re going to need to ban a lot of other things, including fruit, because people will just make it at home. Except it’ll be unregulated, then people will start dying even harder.
What you are saying does not make sense at all.
That’s literally what happened throughout the US in the 1920s.
I can make alcohol in a bowl on my counter with sugar, yeast, water, potatoes, and a couple weeks waiting. I can do it much faster and more effectively with a little copper tubing and some heat.
Don’t even need the potatoes.
You can make hooch with just sugar, water, and yeast
Great, how much can you make?
The way that banning work is by limiting the availability.
If you are a addict you cannot go to the bar for drink.
Which means the banning work in your case.
Seriously pal, read up on what happened in the US when we tried prohibition. Read up on prison economics. Alcohol is severely restricted in prisons all over he world, and most prisoners have no problems getting alcohol. The only thing that happened when we tried it nationally was we created massive crime rings, and the more of those that shut down, the more popped up.
How much can I make? I can get 55 gallon drums on Amazon. So 55 gallons, at least. I can fit probably 15 of those in my basement. So that’s 725 gallons at one time. Read up on bathtub gin. I’ve got two bathtubs. They’re probably around 20 gallons each.
If I was an addict? You literally cannot limit alcohol from people who want it, because it’s very easy to produce in very large quantities with very simple equipment. See also the wAr oN dRuGs and how well that limited access to pretty much every narcotic they attempted to control.
e: > If you are a addict you cannot go to the bar for drink.
Lol. Go look up what a speakeasy is. “Illegal” and “unavailable” are two entirely separate and unrelated concepts.
banning alcohol only reduced LEGAL AVAILABILITY, people will still be able to make mass quantities of alcohol for sale, these products will almost certainly not be up to standards of local health and safety originations and will result in more harm than if purchased through a legal source.
Well when they banned it in the united states you could still go to a bar it was just illegal, they just had to be secret bars, if anything banning it makes it more dangerous since then it’s completely unregulated and you get bad moonshine and you go blind.
Yeah. You’ll get there.
The only friend I ever had die of actual alcohol ingestion was distilling it himself and made wood alcohol that killed him.
Why we did not hear about stuff like this in saudi arabia?
There it is. Cultural bias both ways, friend.
Well, we lived in backwoods Kentucky, so I doubt it made the news over there.
This proves you are either a child or woefully ignorant. My guess is both.
Sure, same with refined sugar, caffeine, condoms, weed, nitrous oxide, tobacco, vapes and processed foods. Also plastics, fossil fuels, teflon and PFAS in general. And while we’re at it plastic surgery, tattoos, piercings, maybe music?
Whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah! Everything else is fine, but you leave my condoms alone! A man needs something in the middle of the night when he gets up for the glass of water and then starts feeling a little peckish. Hunger should not be denied.
There is not a single reason for any human to get access to alcohol.
But there is. Because people enjoy it. Because it is a carrier of culture, tradition, and history. There are many things that people do that have risks, negative health effects, etc. Should all of that be illegal? Rock climbers sometimes need rescue, whose cost is often born by the public. Cell phones cause distracted driving. Processed foods make it easier for people to overeat, become obese, die, and create costs for society along the way.
Your premise is that there isn’t some transactional, functional value of alcohol. But people aren’t robots and we get value from the emotion and experience of things.
Tax alcohol to cover negative externalities, enforce drunk driving laws, force disclaimers about the health impact, and let people make informed, but free, choices.
Good unpopular opinion though. Good discussion! Have a great day!
If you think people think about culture when they drink cheap booze, you are insane. Heroin has such a rich culture and people have done it for so long now, why isn’t everyone doing heroin?
No one said cheap alcohol except you. I brew beer, discuss brewing beer, and very much appreciate the culture and history of brewing. I also enjoy reading about classic cocktails, and occasionally having some. I’ve read entire books about the history of distilling, the origin of terms like the angels share, etc.
The opinion posed wasn’t that we should get rid of cheap alcohol, but that all alcohol should be banned everywhere.
Well, no one I have heard of is making old recipes of heroin with their kids and watching the process and giving out black tar as holiday gifts.
this is in response to your edit:
banning things really doesn’t work . sadly you even stated examples in your edit… ban guns? only criminals get guns. ban alcohol… we tried that in the U.S. that failed epically (bad booze and no real way to trace where it came from). ban drugs? yup the drugs still exist and since we outlawed them it makes it very difficult to go to the hospital without fear of being arrested. speeding? it makes most slow down… not really most still speed just hope they don’t get caught. at least when you speed (if there is a police officer nearby and if they spot you and if they spot you in a way that they can give you a ticket) then they can give you a ticket. but at least it slowed down some of the problem. but the alcohol… if it’s banned we have no way to trace where it’s made and there is no regulation or oversight. it’s better to tax the shit out of it and use the money to help educate people.
absolutely right, only weed should be legal
Tried it. Didn’t work.
How would you ban alcohol without repeating all the problems when they tried it in the USA in the early 20th century?
Widespread smuggling caused massive crime because it turns out making it illegal doesn’t make people want to stop drinking.
Whether or not you think that, actually enforcing a ban has proved very difficult in the past. Better resources for addicts of all nature is proven to be much more effective than outright banning things.
Reason 1: Because I want it.
Thankfully, I don’t drink and not planning to.
Thankfully, no one is forcing you to.
