Paul,

I have read a reasonable amount on native Indians and while their treatment by new Americans was terrible, I have yet to find anything that attributes the fall of the native population in any degree to alcohol.

As your speaker said, it was after they were dispossessed that alcohol became a problem.

SM, alcohol does not alone cause the total destruction of communities, but it certainty not a positive. In the slums of London in the 19th century alcoholism was rampant, gin shops, sly grog was everywhere.

Paul,

That alcohol can be a destructive force is not in debate, whether it was systematically used to dispossess aboriginal tribes of their land is what you have claimed and completely failed to demonstrate.

Alcohol ravaged all societies including those of the colonists.