Alcohol is popular because also improves your socialization, could be linked perfectly, but I’m not an expert to say it. And smoking cigarettes is also bad and isn’t banned, while weed is safer than those two addictions, and it’s still mostly illegal. There are reasons, and hippies are probably the cause, government wanted to criminalize them and their love movement. If alcohol keeps you down, and quiet, the government will not care to ban even if it’s bad for your health, they need the companies to keep winning money.