Imagine that you in a position to which you are not sure if you are dreaming or whether that you are conscious but in a dreamlike state, whereupon, as you venture forth outdoors and begin your walk your nose becomes aware of the scent of quite obviously marijuana being smoke, then as you turn the corner, you notice what appears to be a bar, and as you walk inside that darkness, you see a couple of pans on an old-fashioned coal-fired stove that seem to be cooking a little something that isn't food, and off in the corner, you see what looks to be a hookah pipe, with something being smoked, but it isn't tobacco or cannabis, it just seems like its opium. And later as you exit that "bar" you walk into an old-fashion and quaint drugstore, whereupon you observe that one of the items being sold, says "Cocaine toothache drops". All of this is very puzzling and confusing to you, because the country looks and feels just like America, but you know consciously that it can't be America, until you see a newspaper headline, and the date at the top of the paper, which says 1885. Yes, indeed, there was a time in America, when marijuana, cocaine, and opium were legal in this country, in an era when man was far freer from onerous State authoritarian rules and regulations.
Today, America, doesn't want you to believe that substances such as cocaine, marijuana, or opium were ever legal, or ever available without strict medical or governmental oversight, but in actuality that was the norm within America as well as most other nations throughout history; it is only in more modern times, that Americans have been so restricted in using substances that are derived from plants and so common to certain areas of the world. In today's nanny-police state, the government has significant penalties for those that utilize drugs which have been arbitrarily labeled as both dangerous as well as illegal unless such drugs are taken under strict medical supervision and attention.
Yet, through it all, through all of the hysteria, there was a time when all of these illegal substances were legal within America, and the country did not fall apart. This would strongly imply that State control of these substances are really an excuse for the government to bully around its citizens, or better put, to incarcerate certain citizens that it wishes to imprison or fine or inconvenience because the State as well as its designated agents wish to punish those that do not adhere to its particular political correctness at that time.
The government is forever putting forth propaganda that the laws that it creates in regards to the illicit usage of certain unauthorized drugs are for the betterment and for the protection of society at large, but this is in actuality a smokescreen for their real purpose of both control and as a protection racket for certain favored segments of society. For instance, if certain medicines that contain opium like derivatives are only available to people if they are patients and properly prescribed to them by medical doctors, than this benefits directly both the medical field as well as in particular, pharmaceutical companies. After all, the coca leaf, the opium poppy, and cannabis are not difficult plants to grow, cultivate, and nurture, but the State does not wish for you as individual to have such a power, and its penalties for those that ignore this, are incredibly severe and detrimental, so that they can forever remain your master, and you, thy faithful servant.