I don't want to turn this into a legalization argument. But, there are facts about alcohol that people gloss over. Like, how excessive alcohol intake depresses the brainstem and death occurs when the person simply stops breathing, or that death can occur from cardiac dysrhythmia. Or that a person will asphyxiate on their own vomit. Or that people die when they pass out and strike their head or when they fall to their death out of balconies and windows.
The CDC estimates that nearly 80,000 deaths are attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States.
This is society's acceptable intoxicant, the intoxicant with its own constitutional amendment... Lord, what if marijuana had this kind of death record – do you think then it too would be acceptable to law makers and to society? Words like incongruity and absurdity come to mind when trying to reason through this issue.