I understand of course severe drinkers having a detrimental effect on the medical system etc. But truth be told, proposing that people drink just TWO standard drinks a week seems suspicious.
I know people that drink a bottle of wine a day in France and are living to a fine old age.
I think it's literally just society learning to let go of bad habits. Alcohol is a neurotoxin we're acculturated to drink, which is pretty insane when you step back in perspective. It also causes massive damage to people and families, more than smoking cigarettes ever did.
Survivorship bias?
Regardless what is so offensive about this article and those like it? There is no mention of prohibition, rather just informing people and suggesting mitigations.
Are they succeeding? From what I can see, no - they are not.
But, perhaps the story in France is different.
It shifts the cost in time and then we can't see the counterfactual of the drinkers and smokers not being dead younger than what they would have.
You can't see how much the current 30 year old marathon running vegan is going to cost the system 50 years in the future compared to the smoker who needs treatment in the present. We pretend that the marathon runner is somehow saving the system money over the sum of their lifetime when in reality the one who is saving the system money is the one who dies younger than they would have. The one who prolongs their life longer than it would have been is the expensive one to the system. This is patently obvious if you spend any amount of time thinking about it.
Of course, no one is going to promote a type of libertine lifestyle as a way to save the healthcare system money. The thought is so unpalatable that we pretend the opposite is true.