WI: Alcohol gets Tobacco treatment

The problem is that smoking gives you and others around you cancer, so quitting is simply good sense. Alcohol can be used on a similar regular basis with no ill effects, so demonizing it would be seen as the religious-political stunt that it is.

The OTL alternative was a ban so popular it was enshrined in the Constitution. It’s hard to argue that a milder version would somehow have more trouble.
 
To start with, in the UK, at least 300,000 (in direct sales) people out of a job, couple this with the decrease in tax takings. All over it wold be a bummer for which ever party is in charge at the time as they would have a max of 3 years before their party is no longer about.
 
The OTL alternative was a ban so popular it was enshrined in the Constitution. It’s hard to argue that a milder version would somehow have more trouble.

Not more trouble, but a different effect. IOTL national Prohibition was a flash in the pan; it came due to a vortex of temporary political factors, people saw it was bad, and it left in 13 years, well within the time in office for many in Congress and the Senate. A prolonged demonisation akin to tobacco would require political support over a period of decades, as politicians come and go, and would have to compete with other political priorities as well as overcoming entrenched resistance from a variety of areas.

But hey, given the power of the PC police in the face of widespread popular opposition it probably could happen.
 
The problem is that it's simply far harder to restrict the production and distribution of alcohol. Tobacco is a specific crop; restricting its production, distribution and consumption poses no greater a challenge than that of, say, cannabis, or cocaine. Trying to do the same with alcohol, on the other hand, is akin to attempting to restrict the production, distribution and consumption of yoghurt, cheese, vinegar, Sauerkraut, sourdough bread and pickles. Because ethanol can be produced by fermenting practically anything.

This. The proposed tax would probably throttle the thriving microbrewery business. In the US at least, this would require changing the law heavily. Right now, by law I can make ~200 gallons of wine/beer a year with absolutely no government interference, as long as I don't want to sell it. So, you'll need to somehow stop people from being able to make wine at home, or tax them. OR all you'll succeed in doing is having more people make their alcohol at home, and utterly wreck a not insubstantial piece of the economy.
 
This is essentially what has already happened in OTL Australia.

To give an example, a case of 24 beers is about $40, and a bottle of vodka about the same.

The other major change is random breath testing essentially eliminating the culture of drinking and then driving.
Well drinking and driving should be a nono
 
The other problem with health warnings is that whereas there is no minimum safe level of tobacco consumption and no health benefits from its use, the same is not true for alcohol. Whereas excessive consumption is definitely detrimental to your health, low to moderate consumption has certain health benefits, such as -

From the Mayo Clinic website. - Medical Daily adds increased life expectancy, reduced risk of erectile disruption and dementia to the list. It's apparently even good for fighting off the common cold. Seriously, it wouldn't take much of a campaign to make booze sound like a miracle drug...

If the government wants to put health warnings on alcoholic drinks about the dangers of excessive consumption it's a certainty that the producers will fight back by putting even larger notices about the benefits of moderate consumption, and how would you stop them?
I drink my wine daily, Seldom to excess . But I try not too.
My wife says I take my Nobel family history a Bit to serious and like wine like a medival king :)

But I seldom have a cold and she and the kids sick quite often and others I know.

It's still not good for me this I know. But still .. Anyhow back to my riesling

Plus it helps you sleep.. Or at least fall asleep. Level of help on the sleep varies by mileage and discount cards and stuff
 
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elkarlo

Banned
The problem is that smoking gives you and others around you cancer, so quitting is simply good sense. Alcohol can be used on a similar regular basis with no ill effects, so demonizing it would be seen as the religious-political stunt that it is.
Very true. Cigarettes are also an appetite suppressant, so people can eat more instead. With no booze, what is the alternative? Pot?
 

Ian_W

Banned
This. The proposed tax would probably throttle the thriving microbrewery business. In the US at least, this would require changing the law heavily. Right now, by law I can make ~200 gallons of wine/beer a year with absolutely no government interference, as long as I don't want to sell it. So, you'll need to somehow stop people from being able to make wine at home, or tax them. OR all you'll succeed in doing is having more people make their alcohol at home, and utterly wreck a not insubstantial piece of the economy.

Didn't happen in Australia - in fact the reverse did.

If a crap commercial beer costs $6 and a microbrew I like to drink costs $8, I'll more probably go to the microbrew, as opposed to if they are $2 and $4, and a lot of people seem to agree with me.
 
Didn't happen in Australia - in fact the reverse did.

If a crap commercial beer costs $6 and a microbrew I like to drink costs $8, I'll more probably go to the microbrew, as opposed to if they are $2 and $4, and a lot of people seem to agree with me.

Interesting. Does the tax cover all alcohol, or just beer? Also, are there laws preventing home manufacture? I make my own wine, because I can do it more cheaply than I can buy the wine...and hey, everyone needs a hobby.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Interesting. Does the tax cover all alcohol, or just beer? Also, are there laws preventing home manufacture? I make my own wine, because I can do it more cheaply than I can buy the wine...and hey, everyone needs a hobby.

Beer and spirits are taxed heavily, and wine isnt (see also 'Class War by the Rich'). Home manufacture of booze is pretty much legal, just dont try and sell it. Homebrew spirits are more of an issue, mostly because its harder to kill yourself with stuffing up a homebrew shiraz than stuffing up bathtub gin.
 
Beer and spirits are taxed heavily, and wine isnt (see also 'Class War by the Rich'). Home manufacture of booze is pretty much legal, just dont try and sell it. Homebrew spirits are more of an issue, mostly because its harder to kill yourself with stuffing up a homebrew shiraz than stuffing up bathtub gin.

Spirits are taxed, though I'm not positive to the extent, though that has always been so here (See: Whiskey rebellion). Beer and wine tax both vary by state, though there is also a Fed tax too. Private manufacture of spirits is illegal without a license, though I tend to assume that's more because Uncle Sam wants his cut, more than concerns about safety. Freeze distilling is child's play, after all.
 
The Rudd govt had a moral panic about 'alco-pops' (not even an Australian word in any way shape or form) and jacked the price of pre-mix spirits up through the roof to stop young people who can't afford to drink at pubs 'pre-loading' before going out and getting bashed or raped. Sydney also has had lock-out laws, I don't think this has much positive effect although the government is now addicted to the revenue from the pre-mix drinks.

The next target of the wowsers are 'goon-bags' of cask wine, again because they're cheap, the only effect that will have will to drive more people to drugs and drive the goon-bag industry out of business.

Of course the reason its an issue is not because of the health per-se, but because of the cost to the health system which is taxpayer funded, and this taps into the hatreds of middle class wankers who can afford to drink expensive booze and do other cool stuff without breaking the bank and look down on those who do things differently.
 
That's the catch you just made something that is normal thought history illegal, that makes it more inticing, and or people just look for a new drug of choice / status.
well, the POD here isn't making it illegal, just more expensive. Actually, alcohol is rather different from tobacco, in that drinking is deeply woven into our social life to a degree that smoking never was. And unlike cigarettes, most people can choose to drink less. Problem drinkers, just like smokers, are likely to keep at it full bore, although, just like smokers, some will likely choose to quit completely. But, unlike smoking, I'd think that the most common response to more expensive alcohol would be 'drink less' instead of 'quit completely'... basically, buy alcohol more for special occasions and holidays and less for day to day stuff...
 

Ian_W

Banned
well, the POD here isn't making it illegal, just more expensive. Actually, alcohol is rather different from tobacco, in that drinking is deeply woven into our social life to a degree that smoking never was. And unlike cigarettes, most people can choose to drink less. Problem drinkers, just like smokers, are likely to keep at it full bore, although, just like smokers, some will likely choose to quit completely. But, unlike smoking, I'd think that the most common response to more expensive alcohol would be 'drink less' instead of 'quit completely'... basically, buy alcohol more for special occasions and holidays and less for day to day stuff...

Watch a Humphrey Bogart or any contemporary WW2 movie sometime and see how deeply smoking was woven into our social life.
 
Watch a Humphrey Bogart or any contemporary WW2 movie sometime and see how deeply smoking was woven into our social life.
for a short time, it was. But when it got too expensive and people started to learn just how destructive tobacco is to our health, it dropped out of our social life PDQ. Alcohol has been around for a lot longer. I'd bet alcohol would be a lot harder to remove from our social scene, especially since it is far less addictive to most people...
 

Ian_W

Banned
for a short time, it was. But when it got too expensive and people started to learn just how destructive tobacco is to our health, it dropped out of our social life PDQ. Alcohol has been around for a lot longer. I'd bet alcohol would be a lot harder to remove from our social scene, especially since it is far less addictive to most people...

Tobacco never got too expensive. Tobacco became too expensive because certain governments chose to tax the utter crap out of it.
 
Tobacco never got too expensive. Tobacco became too expensive because certain governments chose to tax the utter crap out of it.
that was my point... it got costly, the health factors.... people decided to give it up (AFAIK, 'cutting back' isn't generally an option). Alcohol is a bit different... most people can cut back on it...
 
well, the POD here isn't making it illegal, just more expensive. Actually, alcohol is rather different from tobacco, in that drinking is deeply woven into our social life to a degree that smoking never was. And unlike cigarettes, most people can choose to drink less. Problem drinkers, just like smokers, are likely to keep at it full bore, although, just like smokers, some will likely choose to quit completely. But, unlike smoking, I'd think that the most common response to more expensive alcohol would be 'drink less' instead of 'quit completely'... basically, buy alcohol more for special occasions and holidays and less for day to day stuff...


well to achieve this goal on alcohol you will need either an event that made water much safer in the old world as well as the new. hence why wine and beer is so ingrained, it was safer to drink.

or

you would need to have some super religious reason


funny thing is the blood of Christ is wine .. and jesus himself was rather the fun red solo cup guy doing the water to wine tricks on the weekend karaoke circuit around Judea and stuff. :)

Its been apart of our lives since grog made the first moonshine .. taxing it to the point that people avoid it is possible but you will need to convince the people. hell in places like the Soviet Union they regularly tried to curb consumption. doesn't always work out the way governments want
 
Its been apart of our lives since grog made the first moonshine .. taxing it to the point that people avoid it is possible but you will need to convince the people. hell in places like the Soviet Union they regularly tried to curb consumption. doesn't always work out the way governments want

And look at modern Russia, where Putin's government a while back categorised beer as alcohol for the first time in history along with jacking up the tax on vodka and other spirits. The result was an increase in moonshine and also an increase in sales of "lotions" and similar products--they're marketed as lotions but packaged similar to vodka. Rising consumption of these has occasionally resulted in methanol poisonings.
 
well to achieve this goal on alcohol you will need either an event that made water much safer in the old world as well as the new. hence why wine and beer is so ingrained, it was safer to drink.

There are some fascinating studies showing a strong inverse correlation between mortality rates and tea imports in London and other British cities in the 17th and 18th centuries (basically as imports of tea go up mortality goes down) - the reasoning of course being that for the first time in history water was routinely being boiled before drunk. Find a tea equivalent at least a millennium earlier might help.

funny thing is the blood of Christ is wine .. and jesus himself was rather the fun red solo cup guy doing the water to wine tricks on the weekend karaoke circuit around Judea and stuff.

It isn't just the fact that Jesus' first recorded miracle was restocking the booze supply of a party that ran out that people seeking a religious basis for opposing alcohol consumption have to work around, but the strong and clear instruction from Saint Paul in 1 Timothy 5:23 ("Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake")...

Its been apart of our lives since grog made the first moonshine ..

Even longer than that. I once came across a theory that pointed out that beer appears to have been discovered at about the same time as humans started practising agriculture and speculating that the original purpose of agriculture was to secure a steady supply of grain for beer production. We literally owe our entire civilisation to the desire of humanity to get hammered on a regular basis:cool:
 
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