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Alcohol prohibition is not entirely wrong...
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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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Unpopular Opinion
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I don't know about time-limited bans, but the way cigarettes have been handled seems to have been pretty effective. Don't ban but instead discourage use in a variety of ways, prohibit advertising, replace with anti-smoking propaganda campaigns, gradually limit permitted public consumption as usage comes down (which it has).
I could see alcohol getting the same sort of treatment in theory, it also has well documented harms to justify doing so. One thing I'd like to see is more social spaces/events for adults that don't implicitly revolve around alcohol consumption. You can't really prevent people who want to drink from doing it, but you could make it less convenient and more convenient for people who don't drink. For instance maybe establishments that serve alcohol shouldn't be allowed to have dedicated parking, since the expectation that someone is going to drive somewhere, drink little enough that they're still entirely good to drive, and then have to either drive back home or face a huge hassle, sets people up for bad decisions.
Except smoking usage has increased in recent years.
Bans don't stop people.
Look at what happened during prohibition.
Where are you getting that from? All the sources I'm seeing show dramatic long term decline, at least in the US, where the policies I'm talking about are in effect https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/overall-smoking-trends
I agree that prohibition was a bad idea, and any measures that go far enough to create a black market for alcohol should be avoided, but there are other things that could be tried.