# Would society be better off without alcohol?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 7, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921 "2010-09-07T14:53:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/61 "2010-09-11T01:51:34Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#):
>
> If alcohol hadn’t existed in the U.S. during Prohibition, my grandmother and her mother and sisters might have starved to death, and I might never have been born. My great-grandmother, a non-Engish-speaking first-generation immigrant, after her husband died suddenly in the 1918 flu pandemic, supported her six (!) small children by bootlegging. Other than that, she basically didn’t have a safety net, and she really wasn’t qualified to do much of anything else marketable. (The same was true of my mother’s paternal grandparents, minus the dead grandfather; apparently I’m descended from a long line of bootleggers.)
Heh, my great-great-aunt’s husband died right at the beginning of the Depression (after the Crash, but before the repeal of Prohibition). To make ends meet, she ran a speakeasy in her basement. (She died the very same day I was born – I would have loved to have known her)
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/62 "2010-09-11T02:09:27Z")
> [@Bibliovore](#):
>
> There you go, that’s a good argument - freedom. Do free adults really have the right to make bad decisions, even if society suffers? Couldn’t this same argument be applied to illegal drugs?
A lot of people _do_ apply these arguments about freedom and responsibility to most if not all illegal (other) drugs. It’s very much an open question whether the benefits of drug prohibitionism in modern societies (for marijuana, and even for “harder” drugs) actually outweigh the costs, especially in the U.S. experience (in terms of enormous numbers of people in prison; police corruption; bringing the law itself into contempt among significant sectors of society; the occasional little old lady being gunned down in her apartment by overzealous police; and of course the more philosophical arguments about erosion of freedom).
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### Author:  [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2010, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/63 "2010-09-11T09:45:37Z")
It seems that tobacco is becoming increasingly socially unacceptable. As a deterrent it seems to be working better than prohibition. At some point it will just become an underground drug(and probably not a popular one).
Do you think at that point the focus will turn on alcohol? I can see that in 30 years it might be socially unacceptable to drink while still being nominally legal.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/64 "2010-09-12T17:17:42Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#):
>
> It seems that tobacco is becoming increasingly socially unacceptable. As a deterrent it seems to be working better than prohibition. At some point it will just become an underground drug(and probably not a popular one).
>
> Do you think at that point the focus will turn on alcohol? I can see that in 30 years it might be socially unacceptable to drink while still being nominally legal.
The main reason smoking is so frowned upon is because it inconveniences others – it stinks, the smoke gets in your face, it’s extremely addicting, etc. Whereas alcohol CAN be enjoyed without addiction, it doesn’t stink up a room, etc. You don’t have to worry about having a drinking section and a non drinking section, etc.
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### Author:  [@rayman5321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayman5321)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/65 "2010-09-12T19:51:21Z")
No
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### Author:  [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-society-be-better-off-without-alcohol/552921/66 "2010-09-12T22:05:56Z")
> [@Bibliovore](#):
>
> Considering the huge costs to society associated with alcohol, such as deaths and injuries, drunk-driving, non-consensual sex, drunken flings, pregnancies, STDS and general drunken violence, would society be better off without alcohol altogether?
>
> Take the US for example. If there was such a thing as a “perfect” prohibition (i.e. no bootlegging or smuggling or illicit stills), and the country was completely dry - would the country be better off? Granted it might not be a country you want to live in anymore, but would US society be better off?
>
> I guess the short version of my question is whether the harm associated with alcohol outweighs the benefits.
Given the results of prohibition I’d say no. Besides we’d just find other ways to numb ourselves.
Given that everything in nature is there for a reason, why do you suppose psychadelic mushrooms exist? What natural purpose do they serve?
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