The zealots who propagandized for the disastrous National Prohibition early in this century acted in a time when there was little scientific knowledge about the effects of alcohol and they had strange ideas. It permeates and damages all tissue. No other drug can cause the same degree of harm that it does. Alcohol is harmful to the body. Alcohol is a poison, and drinking it might lead to death.
Alcohol is a gateway drug leading people into illicit drug use.
Astonishingly, all these statements, which are very misleading at best, were not made by prohibitionists of old but by officials representing governmental agencies of today. Significantly, the comments are not based on scientific evidence but instead seem to reflect a neo-prohibitionist effort to stigmatize alcohol. This leads the U.S. Department of Education to direct schools and colleges to reject educational programs which promote responsible drinking among adults and instead favor a simplistic call for total abstinence. Part of this oversimplified approach is the notion that alcohol is a dangerous gateway drug that seduces users to begin using illegal drugs. Of course, most illicit drug users also drank milk, ate candy bars, and drank cola previously.