You are somewhat right. Right from the earliest days, intoxicants were disallowed in any form even for lay-people taking refuge in the faith, this is in fact th

You are somewhat right. Right from the earliest days, intoxicants were disallowed in any form even for lay-people taking refuge in the faith, this is in fact the fifth of the five precepts that __every__ person who's taken refuge in the faith is supposed to observe, not just monks or monastics. Also, minor nit-pick, this was a temple and not a monastery. At the end of the day, these people are human, susceptible to temptation, and they succumbed, just as others have in any other community, faith, or tradition. It's not getting any better, now with the situation in Myanmar. There's a much larger amount of cheap drugs flooding the markets in SE Asia from Myanmar, and meth is available for the equivalent of $1.40 a hit [1] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63792923 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63792923