It's not like smoking.  Smoking might give you a nice feeling briefly, but it's not the fun intoxication that getting drunk provides.  If you smoke enough to actually get high, you're probably going to regret it.  But with booze, you could make the tax 500% (hell, you could ban advertising on it), and people are still going to get tanked and do stupid shit, because people know alcohol has that effect, and many like to get tanked and happen to do stupid shit once tanked.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

I imagine that would be extremely easy to evade, they'd just change the focus of what is being advertised.

F'r instance, there are rules about how much beer is served in a glass and there is a constant war of attrition between brewers and consumers about this. One more ingenious suggestion by one brewer was that they weren't selling you a pint of beer, they were selling you a leisure experience.

keep to the Fen Causeway

One could make a good argument that massive taxation of  beer advertising, corporate profits derived from beer sales, etc. is more socially responsible than legalizing gambling.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

The secret is simple: food. Good food. And talking about food.

Fixed.  It's not that they lack food.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin