
How each generation gets the drugs it deserves - spiritusmundi
https://aeon.co/essays/how-each-generation-gets-the-drugs-it-deserves
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spiritusmundi
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.'

