the booze industry lobbies hard at all levels of government and it gets protection as a result.

plus, we as a society have accepted that we like to use substances to alter our consciousness. we accept caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and all of the other unscheduled substances that are widely available for sale to adults in mainstream channels. we look the other way w/certain other substances like marijuana. and we tell ourselves lies about our use of substances like cocaine and meth and MDMA, et al.

i wish we'd be more honest w/ourselves and accept that we like to get high and we will always like to get high and there's nothing wrong w/it as long as we can manage our high w/o damaging our lives completely. and those of us who have trouble w/the management should be able to get help w/o being deemed criminals. the rest of us who can manage just fine should be able to access whatever substance we want w/o undue drama.