“I say alchohol is a necessary evil”
You start out upside down right away, then. Alchohol is NOT an evil. People may do evil things under its influence and it may lead to all manner of social ills, but it is not evil in itself. Our criminal law is supposed to be based on acts that are malum in se, or bad in themselves. When you start stretching the criminal law to cover activities that lead to bad general consequences, you are outside of the traditions of Western civilization. You are onto social engineering. Not that traditional crimes don’t have social consequences as well. But that’s not why they’re illegal. They are illegal because they’ve deprived other people of their rights, and because they are bad in themselves.
We must keep such things clear in our heads. Not because limited and technical social engineering will automatically lead to the general and pervasive engineering of 1984, where even unsocial thoughts are considered crimes. But we may forget, and may lose out rights by not recognizing liberty is not having your rights infringed instead of living in a well harmonized society, whatever legal principles got you there. Not that I think any principles but ours can provide harmony, nor that we won’t end up slouching toward 1984.
I do not personally believe alcohol is bad. It can be bad, but overall it is not that bad.
Pot, coke, heroin, and meth (LSD/mescaline/shrooms) are mind altering in a way that just aren’t the same as drinking. Drinking messes people up badly, but not the way the others do.