Unfortunately not something that's within the power of the Scottish Government to enact, as it is a "reserved" matter - a legal power not devolved to the Scottish executive.

There is a strong desire for "shooting galleries" in Scotland (safe spaces to take drugs where help and clean needles are available) but the UK government and the Scottish government have very different policies on drugs.

You got that right. Alcohol is a straight up dirty drug that’s only around because it was simple to make and a part of Roman culture.

I wonder if there's a startup (or multiple) here? If you take GABA supplements it has some minor version of the affect of alcohol, and if I remember correctly alcohol is a GABA inhibitor. Is there a way to engineer a better, safer, equally or more enjoyable alcohol, maybe with less judgement impairment?

This is what benzodiazepines are[0] and they are not safer than alcohol[1][2]. Alcohol and benzodiazepines are cross-tolerant with each other[3].

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6147796

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19465812

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4816010/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2712270/

You could also just make something fun that doesn’t work like alcohol or benzos.

Plenty of such compounds in existence.

But getting a recreational drug « approved » for sale is difficult. But maybe not impossible.

And chances are the attributes that make it relatively safe in 500mL-beer-equivalents probably make it possible to consume 10x amounts for 10x pleasure but still 5x worse negative effects than that 500mL beer.

Alcohol’s side effects contribute to its self-limiting self-administration for a good chunk of the population.