Google says avg American makes ~$60k/yr and spends ~$600/yr on drinking. 2% of 60k is 1200. So they'd need to be spending as much on weed/cigs/hard drugs as they do on alcohol.
I think it's close, but unlikely?
I think it's close, but unlikely?
The top X% of drinkers drink orders of magnitude more than the average. They skew the average much, much higher than what people think of as how much the "average person" drinks.
According to this news article [1], the "average person" drinks (73.85 + 15.28 + 6.25 + 2.17 + 0.63 + 0.14 + 0.02) / 10 = 9.834 drinks per week!
But the fifth decile (the middle of the distribution) drinks only 0.14 drinks per week --- less than one per month!
I appreciate your analysis but I think the average is too lossy of a statistic to make a good argument here.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...