• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    even casual drinking increases your risk of cancers by alot

    Not according to the CDC. Binge drinking carries a host of risks, even if done infrequently. Moderate (ie, less than 2 drinks a day) drinking is generally not associated with negative health impacts.

    also besides alcohol is use to subdue a population from causing an uprising.

    I’ve heard both sides of this. Beer as an intoxicant reducing the population to drunken louts, incapable of self-defense. And beer as a social lubricant, capable of bringing people together for collective action.

    I don’t think the alcohol is the proximate cause, either way. Certainly, there have been a multitude of hard-drinking Revolutionaries and Reactionaries alike (Hoffbrau’s were popular with both Lenin and Hitler). Meanwhile, Prohibition as a public policy was largely used to harass the working poor and monopolize production/imports into the hands of well-positioned political insiders.