[rayiner]

And? What makes it “human.” I use a ton of coffee to alter my mental state—I’m not going to glamorize it as being more “human.”

[LocalH]

Some think that use of psychoactive substances were key to humans becoming "humans" and developing the capability for higher reasoning. What makes it not "human" to alter your mental state?

[tptacek]

It's hard for me to imagine a definition for the adjectival "human" that doesn't boil down to "stuff we've been doing consistently since the dawn of the species". You're wrong: intoxication is essentially, intrinsically human; it's one of the most human things you could come up with.

That doesn't make it good, or mean we can't prohibit it; I can think of other human things that we can't reasonably tolerate. But your specific argument was weird, and faulty.

[lupire]

Tool use one of the key distinguishing characteristics of humans.