> But alcohol is ok because...

It's not okay. It's an evil drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the USA annually, both innocents and users. If we were honest with ourselves we would take a good look at alcohol and its role in our culture/society, but we won't and will look for scapegoats to alcohol-rooted problems in other things.

That position is at least self-consistent :)

    > But alcohol is ok because

It's dramatically dramatically less addictive than opiates.

The literature generally supports that alcohol is moderately less addictive than opioids (see the previously mentioned chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_abuse). In addition, methamphetamine, hallucinogens and many other illegal drugs are significantly less addictive than opioids. It's difficult to identify what measurements are due to the intrinsic qualities of a drug vs the environment and methods associated with consumption.

I think part of the bias is that when one thinks of alcohol one thinks of having a beer after work - opiates conjure up images of shooting up heroin. But a massive fraction of people take opioid pain killers on a temporary basis and suffer no ill effects - I'm sure many of them would admit that being under their influence is at least somewhat pleasant. Likewise, media seems slow to cover cases of horrific alcoholism with massive systemic organ failure. In Russia, for example, the life expectancy of men is 64 years old, largely due to a culture encouraging copious alcohol consumption.

This is flat out false. in addition, the physical withdrawal from alcohol addiction is significantly worse than the symptoms from opioid withdrawal. Alcohol withdrawal can actually kill you. My father was a severe alcoholic (i.e. physically dependent) and would have to get hospitalized on a semi regular basis to help him get through withdrawal safely. Opioid withdrawal is terrible but iirc it is not directly life threatening.