If alcohol was discovered today, it would be considered as harmful a substance as opium and it would be banned. But humans have been consuming it for thousands of years, so it’s been normalized and grandfathered into society.
We’ve been doing opium for thousands of years and still deem it harmful enough to ban. Hell, it’s bad enough that it has actually been used as a weapon in the past to destabilize nations.
Beer is arguably the foundation of human society. Grain (and the harvesting of it) is a building block of civilization, and beer is inextricably linked to that.
If alcohol was discovered today, it would be considered as harmful a substance as opium and it would be banned. But humans have been consuming it for thousands of years, so it’s been normalized and grandfathered into society.
We’ve been doing opium for thousands of years and still deem it harmful enough to ban. Hell, it’s bad enough that it has actually been used as a weapon in the past to destabilize nations.
Beer is arguably the foundation of human society. Grain (and the harvesting of it) is a building block of civilization, and beer is inextricably linked to that.