The point being made then is that clearly there's far more to the picture than just "it's addictive" or "it results in various social ills".
Contrast that with your human trafficking example (definitely qualifies as whataboutism). We have clear reasons to want to outlaw human trafficking. Sometimes we fail to successfully enforce the existing regulations. That (obviously) isn't an argument that we should repeal them.
It's not a strange reason. IIRC, most cultures have a culturally understood and tolerated intoxicant. In our culture, that's alcohol.
Human culture is not some strange robotic thing, where the expectation is some kind hyper consistency in whatever narrow slice you look at.
I presume my GP would have no objections to regulating these things their commenter whatabouted. The inconsistency is with the legislator, not in GPs arguments.
