Drugs are a viable tool of mankind to overcome, with practical means, the philosophical dilemma that in principal, it would be better to be dead than alive.
Who is against drugs (those that are currently classified as illicit)?
Parents and governments.
Parents are against illicit drugs because they want their children to continue their (the parents') procreative strategy. This means, make their parents proud, and have children who then make their parents (and grandparents) proud.
Children who achieve nothing in life, and who themselves have no children, are a loss for parents. After all the efforts and costs it has taken to raise them: nothing.
From the perspective of a young adult, it may make perfect sense to choose a path of life that ends after a short career in extremely satisfying morphine and heroin with a gentle, painless death.
From the perspective of his parents, it's a waste. Parents gain nothing from a child that chooses this kind of destiny.
Sons may die as heroes in wars, defending their country or democracy. They may die as martyrs or suicide bombers for their religion, or in protest against foreign occupation. Great for the ego of their parents, and no waste at all.
Or sons may be nothing special, but good procreators.
As long as they have offspring, the more the better, they have fulfilled their most important purpose, which is: to give grandchildren to their parents.
This is why most people are vehemently against their children becoming addicted to hard drugs, but don't mind if their parents do.
Which, once more, proves that parents have children for mostly egoistic motives.
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Governments are always against the kind of drugs, which, for precisely this reason have become illicit.
Drugs that are a viable option for young adults to lead an unproductive life followed by an early, painless death, are totally against the interest of governments.
As children, all members of society are a cost factor. They also bind part of the productivity of their parents who typically are in their productive prime.
Once children are young adults, it's payback time. They are expected to work, earn money for themselves, and pay heavily into social security systems, be they formal or informal.
When young adults opt for hard drugs, they don't pay back. Not their parents, not society as a whole. In the contrary, they continue to be a cost factor. And a public order risk.
Governments are not against opiates and other drugs they have made illicit because these drugs would be bad for their users. These drugs have been outlawed because they are bad for the governments.
Look at the type of busybodies who typically make up the top of the executive and legislative branches of modern states.
These are people of a mindset easily unveiled. Theirs typically is an ideology that derives justification for their own lives from outside their own lives. They may understand themselves as agents of a specific religion, or as working for the social good, or another irrational entity.
They work for social progress. At least that is what they claim (and even actually believe of their motives).
Of course it is a lie.
These busybodies on all levels of government primarily derive satisfaction from interfering in common affairs. Because they assume they are of value to their social units, they feel able to attach a value to their own lives, which these lives per se do not have.
It's a particular brand of escapism that lands people in government positions (unless they are after opportunities for gains through corruption). They attempt to overcome their own fear of death by claiming (in their own minds) to be important parts of social structures that ideally persist eternally.
These busybodies typically cannot accept that other, more rational contemporaries prefer to just opt out. They cannot accept that young adults do not care about the social good, don't intend to have families, are not bent towards a successful professional live, but just want to take drugs, and die early.
After all the previous elaborations you may be surprised that I myself am not a consumer of illicit drugs.
Not yet.
Because I still have another, better option.
Sexual enjoyment. Lots of it. The best sex ever.
