People drink less but there is less stigma around alcohol and obvious other once illegal drugs.
You saw the same thing with smoking in the 90s in the US. Kids nowadays wouldn't believe the amount of bitching there was that you couldn't smoke inside restaurants, etc.
And I get it -- cultural assumptions changing is messy and can feel confusing to people.
PS: Also alcohol sold in public spaces has relatively high margins, so that explains that.
I think back to my childhood and smoking was everywhere. My high school (graduated in 1989) had a smoking area for students. Cigarette smoke wafted out of the teacher's lounge. Kids would light up as soon as they got off the bus on a field trip. I don't have many specific memories of it, but people must have reeked.
Alcohol was also huge. We had a fifth year of high school (grade 13) and so there were plenty of 19 year old students and the drinking age was 19. Students would buy beer on their lunch period for the weekend and store it in their locker and nobody thought anything of it.