If you take England as an example, alcohol consumption in the 1600's was four or five times more than it is today. At this point in time, safe drinking water was not always available, what little milk you got from cows would be used for dairy, and coffee and tea were expensive luxury items.

It is important to recognize that alcoholic drinks have been around for thousands of years, and that alcohol was the best option for much of human history. This also made it the most widely used and abused substance there is. In colonial Virginia, people would drink at home, in taverns, in churches, in courtrooms, at weddings, and at funerals. Children would have alcoholic drinks with breakfast, and women would even bathe their small children in cider.

Water, on the other hand, was one of the most common vehicles for disease. If you could avoid it, you might only drink alcohol, and in England, water drinking became associated with poverty. When Benjamin Franklin went to work at a printing house in England, they made fun of him for his habit of drinking water:

"I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried...down stairs a [few] in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the Water-American, as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an ale-house boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six O'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and, therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor, an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils kept themselves always under."

People readily claimed the health benefits of alcohol, but intoxication was still an issue. People would drink in moderation throughout the day, and kids may be given 'small ale' instead. Servants had alcoholic drinks provided to them in their contracts, while sailors would receive rum rations. But they would also save up, get drunk, and fall off the side of the ship, so the rum was cut with water and instead served as "grog."

With alcohol being so prevalent, drunkenness may be seen as undesirable, but nothing deserving severe punishment. In Virginia, the fine for drunkenness was 50 pounds of tobacco, while the fine for stealing a hog was 1000 pounds of tobacco. This fine would usually be excused if the defendant apologized.

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In the 1700s, coffee and tea became less expensive as coffeehouses spread across England. Even if the water quality still had a long way to go, taverns in the colonies could serve these non-alcoholic drinks in the late 1700s. Only then did drinking become avoidable and socially unacceptable. Soldiers in the Revolutionary Army were given ale instead of rum and cider, and might be court-martialed or whipped for being found drunk.

Alcoholism was incredibly destructive, especially to poor working families and Native American communities. In the 1820s, you see the first temperance movements, which gain momentum in the middle of the century. In the 1880s, you start seeing dry states—By 1913, there are 9 states with total prohibition, while a majority of them have some restrictions. In 1920, the 18th Amendment went into effect, and Prohibition began across the country. Speakeasies opened across the country, there was the rise in organized crime that went with it, and President Harding kept on drinking anyways. Prohibition quickly fell out of favor during the Great Depression, and was repealed with the 21st Amendment in 1933.

Even with the issues of drunkenness, alcoholism, alcohol poisoning & overdose, it can be done in moderation very easily compared to most drugs. But alcohol is really unique because it is already an aspect of social life, and it is already widespread. This makes total prohibition of alcohol not just unreasonable, but unenforceable.

Cannabis is a fine example of a drug that can be done in moderation very easily—and unlike alcohol, there is little to no risk of an overdose. But it was never as widespread (or perhaps convenient) as alcohol, which meant it was easily prohibited. Between the Mexican Revolution, the Border War & Repatriation, it took on the foreign-sounding name of marijuana. The niche moral panic movie Reefer Madness (1936) became a cult classic in later years.

As drug culture flourished in the 60s, with the counterculture of the Civil Rights Era, it was associated with blacks and hippies. In 1971, the Controlled Substances Act was passed and Nixon declared his War on Drugs. The famous John Ehrlichman quote is a bit of an oversimplification, but soon the original focus on rehab was replaced by militaristic response, and Nixon's "War" morphed into the Reagan Era's punitive justice system. In the 90s, Democrats also positioned themselves to be 'tough on crime,' and mass incarceration soared.

Other safe forms of intoxication are still kept in this niche of controlled substances because of our response to the apparent drug crisis since the 70s. Even if alcohol is far more dangerous than drugs such as cannabis and LSD, it was heavily stigmatized and de-stigmatized long ago.

During this same period, alcoholism and drunk driving have been handled quite seriously—Alcoholics Anonymous had a growing membership. Drinking at work was more stigmatized than ever. And in response to pressure from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 demanded that states place the minimum age to purchase alcohol at 21, or else they would lose highway funding.

There is a general understanding that not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, yet there is a special emphasis on anyone who tries controlled substances becoming a potential addict. For some drugs this is warranted, but for many others it is merely an extension of their niche popularity.

*Edit: Tobacco & cigarettes certainly deserve their own attention, since they were so widely popular in the past, had an incredible lobbying effort, & have been effectively stigmatized since the 90s but remain legal.

Very interesting response, thank you. A couple more questions though. How did Franklin drink water without becoming sick and why was he so certain of it's health benefits?