Worse it’s how you then get actual alcoholics buy big cases of water bottles with deposit, drain out the water in front of the shop, then go inside and cash the deposit in exchange for liqueur.

If you don’t want people to stay alcoholics have fucking therapy in place. And none of that “zero tolerance” BS many folks need tapering: You get them to a steady state where they don’t binge, don’t have to suck dick for drugs, have some stability and thus room to breathe, then you come in with psycho-social treatment, and with that progressing and the underlying reason for the addiction vanishing the substance consumption itself can be further reduced. And even if they never get to zero such kind of treatment still lowers the total cost of addiction to society so even liberals should be on board.