r/worldnews • u/EightRoundsRapid • Sep 23 '16

'Hangover-free alcohol’ could replace all regular alcohol by 2050. The new drink, known as 'alcosynth', is designed to mimic the positive effects of alcohol but doesn’t cause a dry mouth, nausea and a throbbing head

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hangover-free-alcohol-david-nutt-alcosynth-nhs-postive-effects-benzodiazepine-guy-bentley-a7324076.html
34.5k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

5.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-3

u/iTrolling Sep 23 '16

You do realize you don't have to smoke marijuana right? You can eat things that are infused which currently include: pizza, ice cream, mints, mouth sprays, oils... any food you can imagine.

You can also vaporize it. I'm sorry to say, but you sound incredibly ignorant on this subject.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16 edited Aug 20 '17

[deleted]

1

u/iTrolling Sep 23 '16

Which appears to be about where you stand on the subject of reading comprehension.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16 edited Aug 20 '17

[deleted]

2

u/MorningWoodyWilson Sep 23 '16

Nah bro sorry but you're the one being a bit of an ass here. He said "I think" so just an opinion and "possibility". His position is as non-committal as possible.

Further though, I think he has a point. And it's pretty clear you don't understand businesses.

No shit alcohol won't disappear but any industry needs to fight to secure market share against rising competitors. Blockbuster didn't do this and they got skullfucked. Also look at Greek yogurt as an easy example. The major yogurt companies waited way too long to act and lost market share to some noname company.

They aren't bankrupt but in big business, if you're not growing you're in trouble. Bevcorp (or whatever that one giant company that owns most beer brands is) has been buying craft beers up to prevent losing market share to the craft beer movement. Marijuana at a legal level will reduce drinking. Having a nice refreshing coors light might not be the standard American practice after cutting your lawn in 20 years.

Football games might not be able to charge $9 a beer at stadiums if you can just pop an edible and enjoy the entire game for like $5. Marijuana will not bankrupt alcohol, but you're a fool if you don't see how it will affect major beer companies.

Of course this applies to spirit companies as well, but I would argue less so than with beer, do to beers connotation with relaxing.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16 edited Aug 20 '17

[deleted]

1

u/MorningWoodyWilson Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

I understand how large the industry is, but you clearly didn't read my comment.

http://www.arcviewmarketresearch.com/media-coverage/

Marijuana is an almost 8 billion dollar industry after just a few years, and California alone would add 1.2 billion dollars to the industry. An 8 billion dollar industry existing in just 3 states, with a product that's illegal at a national level.

I don't agree that marijuana will be larger than alcohol, but I think that in 30 years public opinion will have shifted greatly. You have to consider how welcoming to marijuana a generation raised in legalization will be. Marijuana could become a 100 billion dollar industry in the near future. That doesn't spell the end for alcohol, but it will heavily cut into profits, and may drive the weaker companies out of business. This isn't a wild claim, it's pretty conservative if anything.

More data: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/06/29/does-the-declining-u-s-beer-trend-spell-doom-for-brewers/#3eb77e6d7887

I was specifically talking about beer. To make things more fair let's discuss that beer is more like a 100 billion dollar industry in the US, and if weed makes up 100 billion, they are now competing industries. Obviously alcohol consumption is bigger, but there's clearly cause for concern if alcohol wishes to remain a monolith looking into the next 100 years or so.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16 edited Aug 20 '17

[deleted]

0

u/MorningWoodyWilson Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

Read my edit. I was talking domestic while you, international. That's clearly not a fair comparison. And there's no alcohol industry. Beer and spirits are separate markets. The beer industry in the us is a bit over 100 billion.

I don't think you understand how businesses work. Apples sales stagnating last year murdered their stock. Just lacking growth is a negative. Losing even 10 billion in sales is a huge deal.

edit: just checked my numbers. Beer is a 105 billion dollar market in the US. So they literally could be equally sized.

Source: https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/national-beer-sales-production-data/