Countries make good money on taxes from the sales of alcohol as they do with cigarettes. It came a time when the money the government was making on cigarette sales was not enough to warrant the ongoing health costs of treating the smokers who had chronic illness, hence the push to cut down the amount of people who were smoking.
If you look at 1990 death rate for smoking in the UK it was 147 in every 100,000 people. If you look at the death rate for alcohol in the UK in 2018 it is 12 people per 100,000 people. So why would the government want to lose the money they gain on taxes for selling alcohol when the death rate is so low.
In 2018 there were approximately 7,800 deaths recorded involving alcohol in the UK as opposed to 78,000 deaths from smoking.
A £2.50 bottle of 5% cider is 12 units so for £2.50 you can do your UK weekly units almost in one session. But we know that the unit limit of 14 was a political move and not one to do with medical advice in the UK.
The government is not concerned about the age we are living to but they are concerned about having to treat chronic illness in the UK, and the two big ones are smoking and obesity so I imagine they will be tackling obesity well before drinking.