Why Does Alcohol Still Enjoy the Privileges Denied to Tobacco?

The tobacco industry has long since been cast out of polite society. Rightfully so. After decades of deceit, suppression of scientific evidence, and calculated manipulation of public perception, it now serves as the textbook example of corporate malfeasance. Governments responded with bans, stigma, taxes, and packaging regulations. The result: moral marginalisation on a global scale.

Yet the alcohol industry, which produces a similarly addictive and damaging substance, continues to enjoy widespread cultural acceptance, minimal stigma, and only modest regulatory scrutiny. Alcohol producers sponsor art festivals. Family-run distilleries are lauded for their heritage and craftsmanship. Wealth generated from spirits is celebrated as entrepreneurial success, rarely as a public health liability.

How did we arrive at this double standard?

A Substance With a Social Alibi

To be sure, there are distinctions worth acknowledging. Tobacco is invariably harmful; every cigarette smoked damages the body. Alcohol’s impact is more ambiguous. Many people consume it moderately, with no visible short-term consequence. And while recent studies confirm that no amount of alcohol is entirely safe, the public discourse around alcohol retains a space for nuance, for pleasure, for ritual, for “responsible use.”

Moreover, unlike Big Tobacco, the alcohol industry has not been globally condemned for deliberate scientific misinformation. That difference in intentionality matters, both morally and politically.

Yet the core truth remains: alcohol causes thousands of deaths annually in the Netherlands alone, contributes to addiction, domestic violence, depression, and economic precarity, and still, it retains a strikingly benign reputation.

The Cultural Blind Spot

The answer may lie less in pharmacology than in cultural psychology. Unlike tobacco, alcohol is still interwoven with our sense of identity, festivity, and even refinement. Wine connotes sophistication. Gin suggests craft. Beer stands for camaraderie. Jenever in the Netherlands evokes tradition.

In short: alcohol is ours, part of how we imagine ourselves, our communities, even our values.

That personal proximity fosters selective empathy. The problem drinker is a regrettable individual case; the producer, a skilled artisan. The addiction is isolated; the profits are shared. We do not see the bottle as a bearer of harm, but as a tool of freedom. This is how collective denial works, not through conspiracy, but through complicity.

A Case Study: Schiedam

Nowhere is this more visible than in Schiedam, the historic jenever capital of the Netherlands. Since 1691, the Nolet family has operated its distillery here, eventually becoming internationally renowned through the Ketel One brand. In 2008, the family sold 50% of its vodka division to Diageo for $900 million. Today, they are among the wealthiest families in the country.

Their public image is pristine: the Nolets invest in green energy, scholarships, and local employment schemes. Their wind-powered distillery is a model of ecological branding.

And yet: in Schiedam, rates of alcohol-related health problems are significantly above national averages. The GGD (Public Health Service) reports elevated levels of problematic drinking, especially among older, low-income men. Despite this, there is no known philanthropic investment by the Nolet family in addiction care, harm reduction, or mental health infrastructure.

This silence is telling, not because it proves malicious intent, but because it reveals what is still considered unmentionable.

The Real Question: Not Facts, But Values

So the real question is not: Is alcohol dangerous? We know it is. The real question is: Should alcohol be regulated, restricted, and morally scrutinised in the same way as tobacco?

This is not an empirical debate. It is a normative one.

It is about whether we, as a society, are willing to impose accountability on a product that we also cherish. Whether we are prepared to scrutinise the origins of great fortunes. Whether public health can prevail over cultural sentiment and lobbying power.

Final Thoughts: From Doing Good to Making Right

Corporate social responsibility is no substitute for moral reckoning. It is easy to sponsor a scholarship or build a windmill. It is harder to acknowledge that your wealth is rooted in a substance that continues to destroy lives.

The alcohol industry benefits from moral exceptionalism. It enjoys the glamour of celebration without bearing the weight of its consequences.

Until that changes, until “drink responsibly” becomes more than a marketing slogan, we will continue to toast with a glass half-full of denial.