First we should make accurate information available. Most people avoid bad risks if they are given enough information. To those who still run into health or other problems we should then offer help, whether they abuse alcohol, methamphetamine, nicotine or even cannabis. Chances are, if all the effects of drug abuse were out in the open, it would encourage people to be more careful and it would make it easier for those who need help to get help. If drug use is increasing then that is for a number of factors, such as changing values, cultural influences, personal experiences in people's lives.
Drug use is just a symptom of other causes, some of which are very difficult to address.
It should not surprize us that attempts to treat the symptoms have little effect when the root causes are left untreated. However, many of the changes have positive effects too and in any case are difficult if not impossible to undo. When people look for explanations to difficult problems, especially problems that they have no first hand knowledge of, then it is easier to find an excuse, a scape goat to blame the problem on. Nowadays it's much easier to blame plants or chemicals than to think about the way we work, raise our children and how we entertain ourselves and then to change the way we live. That's why drugs have become such a convenient scapegoat for the evils of society all over the world.