No. of Recommendations: 9
So, offhand, I would consider the scale of a major lasting generational drop in consumption levels, if we see it as you suggest, to be equivalent to a fall of maybe ~20% back to the figures seen in the prior postwar low stretch.
The use of spirits has waxed and waned over the centuries but there has never been a period where it has gone away (the failed Prohibition experiment excepted, and even then…) but I would note there is a new player on the field, because Along Came Mary. After a century of locking people up for the use of a mild psychoactive it has finally come out of the closet - and can be substantially more potent than when it was (widely) consumed underground. That, I believe, takes some of the oomph out of the alcohol gas tank, pardon the mixed metaphor, as a significant cohort of people now socialize, sexualize, and otherwise entertain themselves with different lubricants.
While MJ has always been around it certainly hasn’t been as conveniently around, nor as potent as it is these days, so I would expect *some* diminution in the use of alcohol spirits, though I think it will be a far day when there are Blunt stands at the local football games to compete with Budweiser and Miller Lite.
