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yamtaddle

I mean... have they considered one possibility?

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cmd-f weed, 0 results

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Hm. Nope.

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TFA notes that total alcohol consumption has not changed, but merely shifted from beer to liquor and other types of alcohol.

Liquor gets me drunker, faster, and usually with less calories. Beer and wine also have flavor profiles that, while broad, are still fairly specific. Liquor, OTOH, has a whole lot of options -- amaros, liqueurs, etc.

I never really liked the taste of beer all that much, but it's what everyone else drank, so it's what I drank.

I think that, over time, "people who don't like the taste of beer" are finding they are a silent majority. As more alcohol-but-not-beer options come to market, they keep buying those. I like Kombucha more than beer, now add slightly more alcohol and you have a suitable replacement.

Now imagine this process repeated across every imaginable beverage category that can be sold in stores, and the beer decline is easily explained.

Weed is also much cheaper than beer in many states. I'm an almost daily smoker and a years supply costs me less than $300. Meanwhile when I was drinking more I would easily spend $100 a month on alcohol without even going to bars or restaurants. Makes a lot of sense to substitute in the face of budget tightening.

Let's see... my household gets roughly 3 cases of beer per month. Last price I paid was 16.52 for a case of Genny Light. All in, my beer costs around ~600 per year. Not to bad.

This is a little outdated but in 2019 a case is 15.20$ to 31.21$ from state to state, and cities can bump that even further. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/how-much-a-case-of-beer-cost...

For sure, I buy the cheapest case possible

Idk what planet you're living on but every smoker I know spends closer to 300 a month on weed than 300 a year. Unless youre smoking like a single puff on a 1 hitter once a day, or unless you are getting insane deals on ganj, this makes absolutely no sense to me.

100 in a month on alcohol seems about right if youre an alcoholic (or if you're buying your drinks at a bar)

Concentrates are really great, and cost effective if you're a moderate consumer (even daily).

The store near me sells 2 gram disposable vapes for $30 after taxes. Those last me two months or so if I'm only using them, so I could actually get my cost down more if I gave up flower. My alcohol costs were admittedly a lot of $3 a can craft beer which definitely adds up fast.

Tolerances vary wildly when it comes to weed. I know people who need literally 10x my "I want to be very high" dose to get sorta-high. Weed's expensive for them, but very cheap for me. I probably spend $400ish per year on it and have some almost daily (and our weed prices are nearly double what states with better markets are—ours was deliberately designed to allow political insiders to rent-seek).

> 100 in a month on alcohol seems about right if youre an alcoholic (or if you're buying your drinks at a bar)

You can hit $100/month fast without having that high an intake or buying like you're royalty. Good sipping liquor's hard to come by under $50/750ml, so, 50ml/day and you're probably over $100/month. The wine market's real hit-or-miss (and mostly miss) under $15/bottle (in the US) and a lot of what one might wish to experience, flavor-wise, barely exists at all under $20/bottle. Good beer has been moving toward four-packs priced well in the teens of dollars, single 12-ouncers at $3-7, and $15+ bombers, over the last few years.

Of course if you just want to get hammered and don't care what it tastes like, $100 will get you really far, that's true.

I'm happy that there's someone out there who isn't particularly experienced with alcoholism, genuinely, but your figures are very, very off

$100 a month on alcohol is like, 5-6 low tier cases of beer. That's just 5-6 beers a day. That's alcoholism to be sure, but the degeneracy goes way, way further.

If you work at a liquor store, you'll see the grandma who comes in 3x a week to buy a cheap plastic handle of vodka. Or the guy who buys a 12 pack and two shooters, every single day. Or the new mom who goes from buying 2 bottles of wine a week to 10.

Depends on what youre buying, and how raging of an alcoholic you are.

I probably spend around 100 a month and I would be clinically considered an alcoholic.

In my town craft 4 packs of beer cost 15 dollars, or about 4 dollars a beer. I have 1 a night, which easily brings my cost over 100 a month. I don’t consider myself an alcoholic.

There's weed/gummies, but also liquor and wine. And, with all the negatives around alcohol become more and more known, I think people just drink less. If someone is going to have 1 drink, they are probably more likely to have it be something better.

How are alcohol and weed alternatives to each other at all?

Maybe every now and then you hear about people who don't smoke weed anymore because it makes them anxious or people who don't drink anymore because they "hate alcoholics", but I think they're firmly in the minority.

If you want something mood-altering more than you want the flavor, how's it not? I know a lot of people who've shifted toward weed while reducing alcohol consumption (or even cut it out all-but entirely!) for health reasons—almost no empty calories (IDK maybe a low-two-digit count for gummies, tops, if you use edibles?), far less damage to your body (especially with edibles), usually way fewer problems with hang-overs, and sleep is significantly less-disrupted. A whole lot of what used to be 6-8 beer hang-outs for us have become 3-4 beer (plus weed) hang-outs.

I could be in a bubble there, sure, but if so I bet it's a pretty big bubble. I'm sure some people prefer an alcohol buzz to being a bit high, since they aren't exactly the same thing, but they're in the same ballpark, enough so that I expect plenty of people find them alternatives to one another.

> If you want something mood-altering more than you want the flavor, how's it not?

Ah I think you mean it as a social device, so sure.

> I'm sure some people prefer an alcohol buzz to being a bit high, since they aren't exactly the same thing

Have you ever frequented bars and/or known serious alcoholics? I'm not anti-booze, but that's a whole different world. They may smoke weed too but are completely different people without the booze.

It’s not a bubble. My extended social circle has transitioned to fewer alcohol + weed too. Not just for health… weed alters your mood in … well, nicer ways. People find silly things funny and can open up a bit more. Alcohols effects are great in mild quantities (buzzed) but after that it’s no fun, the hangovers suck and you just don’t have the same kind of experience.

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