They're not wrong. During the waning days of the Biden administration, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy did something for science and public health that was grounded in science - he issued a report encouraging people to get off alcohol.
Some immediately set out to debunk the epidemiology they claimed to have trusted in 2020 when it came to government shutting down society, but that was the norm for cigarettes in the 1960s also. People want to defend their habits and did so then as well. Then alcohol defenders invoked 'in moderation', which was funny coming from a political demographic who claim homeopathic effects about "microplastics" and "ultraprocessed" foods. (1)
We don't tell people to smoke cigarettes or play with plutonium "in moderation", we tell them not to do it. Knowing some will still smoke, which would only get worse if it was banned outright. We still don't provide a fuzzy-wuzzy subjective 'this is safe' line.
“Given the increasingly educated and demanding consumer base, the trend of abstaining from alcohol even amidst celebrations comes as no surprise," says Tastewise CEO Alon Chen. "It is also largely driven by increased health awareness, as consumers align their wellness goals with their diets and lifestyles. We expect this shift to accelerate in 2025, fueled by the growing availability of non-alcoholic options and recent scientific discussions around alcohol’s health risks."
Cigarettes have plummeted in popularity but not due to more regulations and higher taxes, government wanting more tax money for cigarettes is instead what got Eric Garner killed in New York City. It has plummeted due to greater education and smoking cessation tools like vaping, patches, and gums.
But alcohol is the only reason people drink products like whisky. Sure, you may acquire a taste for it, but no one took a sip of Scotch the first time and thought, 'wow, that is really good', it is literally an addictive carcinogen with flavors added to make it more palatable. The thing that got a whole lot of vaping products banned even though nicotine has never killed anyone. Certainly not billions, the way alcohol has.
For that reason, the wave of non-alcoholic products capitalizing on the new health wave may go away. Fake meat that only looks like meat has a market, but it isn't mainstream and once people stop getting alcohols effects it will go down to the 12% range where cigarettes now are; mostly old people and young rebellious ones who don't care about their health.
NOTE:
(1) It's almost like they either take their orders from their political elites - 'we're pro-vaccine now, ignore what we said about autism from 1998 on' - the same way Republicans suddenly embraced Bobby Kennedy and hate Big Pharma. But the left forgot that the entire reason Prop 65 cancer warnings have to be slapped on every product in the state is because of International Agency for Research on Cancer claims. IARC epidemiology they insist is settled science when they are suing over weedkillers and coffee is wrong on...alcohol? A legitimate class 1 carcinogen as dangerous as plutonium?
It can't be that social authoritarians suddenly remember 'the dose makes the poison' when they declare 1 part per quadrillion a pathogen, like when they are trying to ban plastic spatulas and PFAS in water. They either accept science or they accept epidemiological claims even if they don't like them
That would be trust in science beyond smarmy 'I don't believe in evolution I accept it' rhetoric toward religious people by atheists who don't know anything at all about adaptive radiation and so absolutely do believe in evolution without knowing anything about it.
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