The alcohol industry was successful with it for a while. There was a time when it seemed a new study came out every month about how alcohol, in moderation, was associated with a longer healthier life than abstaining completely. Then all the studies about the antioxidants(?) in wine. My grandma used to have a small glass of wine every night for the health benefits it was supposed to have. These days we’re being told there is no safe level of consumption and any amount is bad, but even that message hasn’t been widely communicated.

Example from 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/30/alcohol-life...

Tobacco stated off being marketed as a botanical medicine. We could say similar things about cocaine and other harder drugs as well.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7247455/

Meat mostly got a bad wrap due to its association with fat. Fat got a bad wrap, because the sugar industry paid off researches to point the finger and fat instead of sugar as the cause of heart disease. We’re still paying the price for this one.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...

There are also the vegans who have made it their life’s mission to try to vilify meat, so that’s kind of the same thing, but from the opposite direction.

These things have happened in other industries. It’s just that many of those were impactful enough that they could only keep up the ruse for so long. Caffeine has a more mild effect, so it’s less likely that it will end up like cocaine or tabacco.