I highly doubt this is correct. I fell off the wagon late last year and I got to the point I was drinking Fireball shooters, half-pints, and pints daily. I used to make fun of the stuff, but I started drinking it because it was cheap, it was ubiquitous, and it went down easy. I actually don’t even think the cinnamon taste is bad at all–remember all those cinnamon flavored hard candies and Big Red chewing gum when we were kids? I guess it left my breath better smelling than drinking gin (my usual drink of choice when I went on a binge), so perhaps it was more difficult to tell if I was drinking, but I couldn’t tell, as nobody (meaning, my wife) was the wiser that I was drinking again. So, hey, maybe it did do its job. But that tell-tale scent of cinnamon I think would be a dead giveaway and easier to detect than even alcohol.
It’s just a faddy drink, like Jaeger was (and mentioned–and a drink I unironically enjoy[ed].) Years back when I still had my drinking somewhat under control, many people around me, especially the more “fratty” types, drank Fireball like water. It was at every party. Not a single one of them smoked pot. It’s just relatively cheap, really sweet, easy to get down (at least for a lot of people), and packs a punch. It’s as simple as that. There doesn’t need to be any more complicated a reason.