I don't see any reason why alcohol should be excempt from strict scrutiny. I should hope you agree that the social and personal costs of alcohol consumption are considerable. Alcohol has a very strong (and not very positive) disinhibiting effect on behaviour when consumed to excess. Hang out at a crowded bar for an evening and you'll see what I mean. There are also long- and short-term health effects.
If you were to set a guideline or legislate based purely on harm reduction, you'd probably legalize substances such as ecstasy (MDMA) and marijuana without much difficulty or debate. Alcohol, on the other hand, would be touchy. The real difference is that alcohol can be consumed as "food", with meals, rather than explicitly as a drug. Some cultures which have adopted alcoholic beverages as "food" have considerable difficulty in changing their method of consumption - for example, hard liquor sales in Italy are very low. Whether it's possible to put the genie back into the bottle is another topic entirely.
Getting back to the point and away from the digression, I don't see a reason why alcohol should be the benchmark for comparison when evaluating drugs from a perspective of harm reduction. Just because people are already drinking alcohol to excess doesn't mean they should; just because people are already drinking alcohol to excess doesn't mean they should be given carte blanche to consume drugs which produce similar negative effects.
That said, drug laws (in general) are malum prohibitam, or evil by nature of their being forbidden. You might make a convincing case against drug and alcohol laws along these lines.
m.
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> Marco Anglesio | People demand freedom of speech <
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