In a way, Alcohol has a monopoly on recreational party drugs. This means that if you were going to throw a party, and each person was going to contribute $30 or so towards bringing refreshments, a good chunk of that goes towards alcohol of some brand. So, obviously, a certain percentage of people will spend that money on bringing a flavor/brand of Alcohol. But with legalized marijuana, chances are a certain percentage of those people who would have purchased alcohol will purchase marijuana, which completely takes that money out of the Alcohol system.

Obviously alcohol companies have to compete with one another for the consumer dollars, but they do so within their sphere of control (again, they offer the only legal way to be inebriated over-the-counter).

Even if legalized marijuana doesn't attack Alcohol's consumer-base directly (meaning, people who drink alcohol will continue to drink alcohol while using marijuana), it affects the part of the equation that has to do with the amount of disposable income people have for things like alcohol. Suddenly that $XX a person spends every month on alcohol is spending half on Alcohol and half on marijuana.

This is frightening to any company.

There are two ways to look at this move by Big Alcohol. The first is just to respect the fact that this is what businesses do. A business should only be expected to make money, and every time you contribute money to that business, you are voting with your dollars to keep it alive financially. As shitty as this may be, they aren't doing it to be "evil," they are doing it because they are fighting a threat to their bottom-line.

Another, more emotional way, is to recognize the hypocrisy and insulting nature of this move by a company you may have supported suddenly turning on you and standing between you and what you want.

With that said, the only solution, if you disagree with this, is to forever boycott these companies. Not so much for the goal of crippling them financially, but just a personal boycott so you know that you are no longer supporting their actions.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, if you go back to purchasing from these companies, then you only proved that their product is so economically inelastic that they can slap their consumers in the face and they will still come back happily with dollars in their hand.

Personally, I am not much of a drinker, so it'd be easy for me... but its something to think about.

Edit: For some reference, consider these numbers from a CNBC report earlier this year. Right now, the Alcohol industry reaps about $188 billion in sales per year. A reasonable estimate of what a legal marijuana market would do is about $40 billion dollars.

This represents more than 20% of the profits of the Alcohol industry. Obviously all of this wouldn't be lost, as people may end up spending more of their money on drugs to compensate for the new option of marijuana vs. just alcohol, but realistically there will be a chunk that will convert their alcohol dollars into marijuana dollars. And that is why they will fight any other substance, no matter what it is, from getting a similar legal-halo in the drug market.