Alternate perspective from the comments section:
'Looking at the drugs themselves when assessing cultural drug use kind of puts the cart before the horse. It is probably more illuminating to try to understand what requirement people are addressing through their drug use and what this says about the society in which they exist.
The people who were using cocaine as a utility drug, to help them work longer, in the 80’s might use Modafinil now because it has fewer side effects. The housewives who used patent medicines in 1897, barbituates in the 1957 and Ritalin in 2017 are all trying to make the monotony less monotonous and the workload less oppressive. Whether people use speed, cocaine, MDMA or some novel research chemical to stay up all night dancing is largely a result of availability and side-effect profiles. The things people use drugs to do are pretty stable, the drugs change either because the side effects emerge that mean the costs outweigh the benefits (heroin, barbiturates, benzodiazepines), a more suitable drug emerges (cocaine-modafinil) or prohibition and adulteration make the drug difficult to obtain or unreliable (MDMA, LSD, etc).
To answer the question, we don’t get the drugs we deserve. We should have access to chemicals that answer all the needs and wants of which we can conceive and there is absolutely nothing preventing this process from proceeding safely and quickly except the misguided and puritanical desire of a vocal minority who feel compelled to regulate the consciousness of other human beings.'
'Looking at the drugs themselves when assessing cultural drug use kind of puts the cart before the horse. It is probably more illuminating to try to understand what requirement people are addressing through their drug use and what this says about the society in which they exist.
The people who were using cocaine as a utility drug, to help them work longer, in the 80’s might use Modafinil now because it has fewer side effects. The housewives who used patent medicines in 1897, barbituates in the 1957 and Ritalin in 2017 are all trying to make the monotony less monotonous and the workload less oppressive. Whether people use speed, cocaine, MDMA or some novel research chemical to stay up all night dancing is largely a result of availability and side-effect profiles. The things people use drugs to do are pretty stable, the drugs change either because the side effects emerge that mean the costs outweigh the benefits (heroin, barbiturates, benzodiazepines), a more suitable drug emerges (cocaine-modafinil) or prohibition and adulteration make the drug difficult to obtain or unreliable (MDMA, LSD, etc).
To answer the question, we don’t get the drugs we deserve. We should have access to chemicals that answer all the needs and wants of which we can conceive and there is absolutely nothing preventing this process from proceeding safely and quickly except the misguided and puritanical desire of a vocal minority who feel compelled to regulate the consciousness of other human beings.'