Missouri has some of the most permissive liquor laws in the country. No open container law, no state liquor stores, no dry counties. If you want liquor any time of day or night you can get it anywhere that wants to sell it. Do we have the highest rates of alcoholism, DUIs, or alcohol related incidents? No.
So I don't want to deal with that government nonsense when not having it doesn't seem to have the negative effect that you're presenting it does.
Fair prices on alcohol is also not true. Liquor in Sweden costs about twice as much as it does in Germany and three times as much for beer.
And here's a fun fact:
Many Swedes consider the regulation of access to alcohol through Systembolaget as necessary because otherwise they expect that even more people become alcoholics. About 4,4% of the Swedish population has an alcohol-related disease or addiction. Which is why the Swedish state tries to reduce and limit the consumption, not least through high prices in Systembolaget or tax. Researchers believe that opening the alcohol market for private businesses could possibly lead to an increase of alcohol consumption of about 30% – maybe even long term.
Our alcoholism rates of incidence aren't even published. They have to be lumped in with binge drinking and called alcohol use disorders. Even with binge drinking in the past month (defined as drinking more than 5 drinks in a night) qualifying you as a member of this set we still only hit 7% in the country.
It's just not a solution that works like you're saying and it's a huge detriment to people like me who drink responsibly.
Missouri is 17th on that list. Another way to put it is "average" because that is firmly in the median quartile ranges. It's 21st when you look at traffic deaths with DUI involved. Average.
Even with that being said, there is nothing about those numbers which prove either of our points. If you even take a cursory glance at which states have higher DUI deaths it's almost always the states where people don't use mass transit. Top 5 include DC, Mass, NY, NJ. Easy access to public transit doesn't mean that people weren't drinking, and possibly more heavily because they knew they wouldn't have to drive.
Your definition of fair prices and mine are vastly different because you believe alcohol should be punitively priced to dissuade use. I completely disagree. Alcohol should cost what the markets say it should cost. The government can tax it up to a point without much consequence, but when that point is overcome there will be enough people willing to circumvent the law that black markets will be sustainable. Alcohol is not hard to make. I could literally do it in my basement tonight with copper and brazing materials that I already have.
It's none of my business what people drink or don't drink. If they want to drink St. Ides for 50 cents then they can go for it. They're only hurting themselves by not drinking responsibly. When they do anything that violates someone else's rights, that's already against the law, and charging $1.50 a can won't make a bit of difference.
Millions of people drink without incident every day. The cost of their actions are paid in fines, higher insurance, and other direct costs applied to them directly. Clearly you don't like drinking and don't want to deal with it in your life. That's fine, but too bad. People who don't go to parks pay taxes for parks. Pacifists pay for wars. It's the inherent flaw of democracy: no one gets exactly what they want.