A manager encouraging employees to take up smoking to fit in better with their coworkers is unethical, and extremely creepy.
A manager encouraging employees to consume alcohol at work in order to foster team building is not fundamentally different than either of the above, it's just milder and deeply entrenched by convention as socially acceptable behavior.
I'm approaching my mid-30s and never had anyone "encourage" me to put the water down and suck on a beer. Nor do I think wheeling a keg into the office is the same as a manager encouraging you to drink.
You definitely stand out when you're in a drinking context and your hands are in your pockets. There's something that can feel distrustful about that in some scenarios. I'd encourage non-drinkers to at least learn to play along and have some beverage in their hand.
A lot of our creep-detector software seems to kick in when someone isn't playing along with social ritual, and complaining that you have to play along doesn't really serve you. They're just basic social skills.
If you have a glass of water in your hand, you are drinking. Maybe you're not drinking alcohol, but calling it "pretending to drink" is just silly.
I don't know about offering cigarettes, but I've definitely been in environments where smoke breaks were an effective way of building connections across the organization.
My last employer offered an on-site therapy benefit and I sometimes wondered whether we'd see a progression from therapy -> on-site psychiatry -> little nudges to take ADHD tests -> everyone is taking Adderall.
I think even your examples make clear there is a spectrum here and not absolute equivalence.
You can’t assess these things in a vacuum from their position in society. If adderall were over the counter and considered as safe as alcohol, the spectrum would change.
If alcohol were offered in a culture where it’s frowned upon it might be seen as worse than cigarettes.
Have you considered that some things are deeply entrenched because they work?
I think most people who aren't teetotalers and who have worked at a startup have brought beer or whiskey to the workplace for after a long day, and I don't think that it's that different when the boss brings the beer: if you are working with people you can't trust, you probably have other issues.
Nobody's saying you have to drink, but it's not a tragedy if that leaves you out of some of the benefits of social drinking.
If think your workplace is exclusive of people you can't trust, you're probably very naive.