Today's illegal drugs were legal before 1914. Cocaine was even found in the original Coca-Cola recipe. Americans had few problems with cocaine, opium, heroin or marijuana. Drugs were inexpensive; crime was low. Most users handled their drug of choice and lived normal, productive lives. Addicts out of control were a tiny minority.
http://www.lp.org/issues/relegalize.html

Could it be true? It almost seems unreal. Is it possible that our policies could
have been so wrong for 90 years?
I guess I am a political reactionary. I do believe that our nation
has been going down the wrong road, and for more than a century,
and not just on drug policy.

Not all change is progress. One hundred years ago, America was in the
midst of a political movement called progressivism.
It was a utopian philosophy that rejected the old calvinistic
view of human nature and introduced the idea that man
could be perfected if government pursued an agressive
policy of education and reform.

By the way, the older philosophy held that, since man is sinful, his
governments, too, are sinful, and therefore advocated a more modest
view of government's role as an agency whose duties were limited to
traditional law enforcement (with fewer laws), and national defense
(but only when there is a clear and present danger)

Today, the government's responsibilities have expanded even
to attempting to solve our personal psychological problems.

Are we better off than those poor misguided souls
who lived before 1914?