

They don’t want moderate left (or democrats, whatever they are). They would be happy to prop up a far left group if they were actually a threat to the state (in fact, under the same policy, the USSR did just that). Their goal is to destabilize, not push ideology. Keep an eye out for isolationist left comments -anything that serves Russias plans. They do have their left bots.
It’s more complicated than that. It /did/ work in some sense. The prevalence of severe alcoholism was insane prior to prohibition and it dropped precipitously. The problem is, the cost of prohibition is so many actual lost lives. Both from unsafe supply and organized crime.
A public health approach also can reduce the harm of alcoholism while not creating new deaths. It’s worth understanding the difference so we can expect, for example, pot to become more abused after legalization, but if public health measures are in place, limited harm.