Yes, but I doubt a government could "control people" at a societal level through control of alcohol addicts.

The article isn't about controlling people, so much as controlling the access and availability of alcohol. And not everyone who has a problem with alcohol is necessarily and addict. Consider the difference between a wedding reception with and without an open bar and the likelihood of drunken incidents. Compare that with a reception where there is no alcohol served at all. True that a hard-core addict can sneak some in, but the chances of the rest of the guests behaving badly reduces substantially and proportionately with their ease of access to drinks.

The article isn't, but the post I replied to is.

> not everyone who has a problem with alcohol is necessarily and addict

I said if you can be controlled via alcohol you have a problem (with alcohol, an addiction) not that everyone who has a problem with alcohol can be controlled through it. I would argue anyone who can be controlled via alcohol is an addict, and not just someone with a problem.

Ok, then back to the wedding reception example. Imagine someone who is not an alcoholic, just a regular person who has a drink now and again. This person, if given access to an open bar, might have a few too many drinks and cause a scene, but if it was a paid bar would only have one or two and be fine. The person's behavior could therefore be 'controlled' by changing the availability to drinks; i.e. putting a cost on each drink reduces how many they have and the corresponding bad behavior they could potentially engage in if they had too many.

But then, that would be "crime" control legit, not "in the name of".

I don't understand what you mean by this.