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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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but it doesn't result in the development of long-term, sustainable institutions of illegal production and distribution (which we see develop with any in-demand black market item).

This.

Furthermore, alcohol is significantly easier to produce than other drugs, such as methamphetamine. With meth I would likely get caught the moment I tried to source precursor chemicals. With alcohol, all the precursor substances are easily sourced in any supermarket. Building a still is probably the hardest part, but the general principle is simple enough. If alcoholic were willing to fork over half their salaries to be supplied with shitty booze, then a lot of producers of shitty booze would pop up overnight. A total prohibition on alcohol seems about as enforceable as a prohibition on masturbation, but with a lot of people actually going blind.

Of course, prohibition will still deter some people drinking in the long run. But most of the discouraged drinking would not have lead to violent crimes down the road. Your median alcohol-induced murder or rape does not happen because someone drank two glasses of wine at a fancy restaurant, or by some partying kid who was fine to spent the night at a dry bar instead of finding an illegal booze-serving place.