Cannabis can make underlying mental health problems worse. I guess it's important to note people should not self-medicate with any drug.

https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=...

Check the links you posted: the association is found in children and those with latent schizophrenic disorders. We also know it is not associated with the causality of schizophrenia, just onset.

Causal association has been ruled out in the case of depression, and in regards to anxiety, the primary mental system it is involved with, the interaction goes both ways, with cost vs benefit unclear and academically unsettled.

If alcohol was brand new, it likely would be a scheduled drug and very well controlled.

It’s only allowed because it’s very old and well integrated to some societies.

Fermentation of grains and fruit is a millennia-old way of preserving food that would otherwise spoil, so it isn’t without merit. The problem today is that alcohol is available so easily and so cheaply in many countries. In Germany, (some) beer costs less than regular milk per liter and hard liquor is available very cheaply as well.

I have seen people that destroyed themselves using alcohol, but most people can deal with it just fine. That’s also the problem when trying to regulate it, as it is not just a drug but a cultural thing in many countries. I have a hard time imagining Germany without its beer culture or France or Italy without their wine culture.

Fermentation and alcohol for consumption are quite different, as you’re probably aware. My kombucha is technically fermented, but good luck getting drunk on it. There is also a sizable difference between more traditional forms of alcohol and cheap high proof spirits harm wise.

Plus since this is a counterfactual, we don't actually need alcohol for preservation anymore. We have refrigeration.

The bit about Germany and beer is merely observational bias. You can’t imagine those countries differently because that’s the way things are for your lifetime. I’m sure in an alternative universe there’s someone talking about German weed culture, or German poppy culture.

Either way, alcohol clearly isn’t going away, and trying to make it go away is foolish. The point is that we’ve normalized a very dangerous compound due to historical reasons, and it’s fascinating.

Sure not all fermentation produces alcohol, but many fermenting organisms do.

And of course it’s observational bias, I said that I personally can’t imagine how the culture of these countries would be without alcohol, though I’m sure people would get along just fine (we don’t need alcohol to survive after all). Just saying that not everything needs to be banned, otherwise we might as well ban sugar and salt as they probably kill just as many (or more) people as alcohol.

I never said it needed to be banned, I’m saying that if we didn’t have a long history with it we probably wouldn’t allow it.

Well, sounds like allowing it was the right decision: https://outline.com/x5EAJE

Again, you're kind of missing the point of this counter-factual.

Well, also the fact that you can make it in a bathtub.

I agree that trying to ban alcohol would be a huge mistake. But to be fair on the feasibility of a hypothetical ban, America has spent almost half a century trying to prevent its citizens from growing a plant.

Part of it is that the biochemical processes involved in producing ethanol are so straightforward that they are undergone in almost every fruit bowl and refrigerator, with or without anyone's knowledge.