There’s the hypothesis some of the first cities built by humans and the spread of agriculture was due to alcohol production. Alcohol brewing is older than writing. And we’ve known about its harmful effects for thousands of years to the point Roman Senators under Ceasar would accuse each other of being alcoholics as political slander.

Everything else is new by comparison. And our knowledge of what these drugs do is much more limited. Reefer Madness is still what a lot of people believe about marijuana, for example.