Yes, but even indigenous tribes surround usage with rituals, it's not a free-for-all. I disagree strongly with criminalisation, but almost universally, drugs ma

Yes, but even indigenous tribes surround usage with rituals, it's not a free-for-all. I disagree strongly with criminalisation, but almost universally, drugs make people extremely selfish and very easily destroy the sense of responsibility needed to work within a society. You can be incredibly reductive and say it's to have a firmer control on the population, and in some ways it is, but at the same time there are perfectly sensible reasons why there is a taboo. If I've had some acid, I'm not going to look after my kids very well. If I've smoked a load, I'm going to prefer sitting on the couch rather than going and doing some work. If I've taken a very strong opiate, that will make me feel better than almost anything else I can possibly do, so why not do that instead of other things. If I take ecstasy on Friday night, I'm going to stay up all night and then come down hard over the next day and I'm going to miss that family get together. All of these things are my choice, and criminalisation [I feel] is staggeringly wasteful and counterproductive. But drugs are often [cumulatively] socially destructive. I agree with you, but a helluva lot of time it's not as clear cut as just an easy excuse to imprison people