[eloff]

Not everything is a giant conspiracy theory. If society changed to the point where drugs didn't have such a stigma against them, then the politicians would legalize them. They excel at doing things that are popular - be it good or bad things. Case in point Canada with their goal of legalizing marijuana.

It's harder to do that in the US because you have more conservative people who see drugs as morally repugnant. My prediction is blue states will continue legalizing and red states will be the last holdout.

[evincarofautumn]

I can see where you got “conspiracy theory” out of that, but I would disagree: it has more to do with ordinary human behaviour.

It’s easy to keep things the way they are, even if that results in greater long-term cost and harm. This is particularly true if you’re the one in power and you stand to benefit from keeping things as they are—whether because you can make money from it, or just because you think it’s morally right.

You see this also in code: it’s “easier” to keep modifying a clunky legacy codebase than to rewrite it, even if rewriting would result in overall better software. It’s not usually a conspiracy to create inefficiency, but a series of penny-wise decisions often has the same pound-foolish effect.

Of course, I agree that if society’s attitude toward drugs changes, politics will naturally catch up.

[Retric]

I don't think there is much of a stigma around hallucinogens compared to Heroin or other opioids. Peyote has long been legal to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyote#Legality

[chestervonwinch]

On the other hand, much of the stigma comes from the illegality.

[fnordsensei]

Sweden has a long history of strong legislation and rhetoric against all kinds of drugs (except alcohol and tobacco of course). This lead to some pretty strong advertising of the type "One marijuana will leave you a mindless and desolate husk! Don't do any of the marijuanas!". Shown in schools even.

Because of the propaganda to science ratio, this had the awkward effect on people who nevertheless ended up trying weed that they sometimes assumed that the authorities must have been lying about the other drugs as well. So, "Weed didn't kill me. I guess the other stuff is a lot less harmful than they made it out to be as well".