[DanBC]

> There is such a thing as responsible, low-level alcohol consumption

That responsible low-level use tends to need strong laws to enforce it.

Minimum unit pricing (which only affects the very cheap, poor quality end of the market); tight alcohol and drivng limits; time restrictions on serving alcohol.

See eg the measures that France brought in (less dead people from cirrhosis; less dead and injured from traffic accidents; more profitable drinks industry) to England, which has seen a five fold increase in cirrhosis over the same time.

Alcohol has enormous costs which are mostly hidden because people don't want to accept the truth.

[superuser2]

Many of those costs are directly related to suburban car culture. When you take the subway anyway, risks are much lower.

I would argue that people drinking enough to incur liver damage are doing so not because alcohol is addictive but because they have other psychological issues for which alcohol is the only effective relief. In which case, if it weren't for alcohol, they'd do something else. You can't make the whole world a padded cell.