Those who eat the lotus, he knew, lose all desire for home. He dragged his men kicking and screaming from their drug-induced paradise because they had responsibilities, families, and a future to work for. They were human beings, and, as such, had more to live for than mere euphoria. Though drugs were an ancient problem, the Bible says nothing about them explicitly, beyond the general injunctions against intoxication. The Greek word, from which we derive our English word pharmacist, had reference to poison, a mixer of poisons, and hence a sorcerer.
American culture is ill-equipped to muster a moral consensus against taking drugs.
Few societies have been so pleasure-centered. Parental authority, which is supposed to teach children right from wrong, is itself compromised on the issue of drugs. The flower children of the '60s now have teenagers of their own. They find it difficult and hypocritical to criticize behavior they themselves indulged in, as if their earlier failings disqualified them from preventing their children from making the same mistakes. This parental failure of nerve threatens to disable a whole generation, and not just when it comes to drugs.