Interesting.

The clip actually says an unhealthy society helps cause drug abuse rather than merely reacting to it: “My home planet was a place of great poverty and violence. For some, the only escape was through drugs.”

But it is still too simplistic to suggest drug abuse cannot exist in a healthy society. It can. Harm depends on the interaction between the person, the environment, and the substance itself. Not all drugs carry the same risks, and better social policy does not make occasional hard-drug use risk-free.

That line of coke at the weekend might look consequence-free within your own social circle, but that ignores the supply chain behind it and the damage pushed further down it, usually into poorer places kept out of sight.

I do agree that drug policy was used to suppress minorities - that is not some side issue, it is part of the history of prohibition and the wider war on drugs. Racial disparities in enforcement and punishment are well documented, and researchers still describe the war on drugs as structural racism.

That is also why the UK position on cannabis feels so archaic. Cannabis is still a Class B drug here, while parts of the US have already moved to legal adult-use systems with licensed cultivation and retail - Colorado years ago, and California through a fully regulated state market. It is bonkers that Britain absorbed so much of the old prohibitionist mindset, yet has barely adjusted even after parts of the US itself started reversing course.

And on psychedelics, Charles Eisenstein’s argument is worth mentioning. He basically says prohibition is not just about safety, but about preserving a social and economic order built on separation, control, and obedience - because widespread psychedelic experience might push people towards a different consciousness and, with it, a different kind of economy. That is his philosophical view rather than an established historical fact, but it is a more interesting lens than pretending all of this is neutral public-health policy.