Right now, Native Americans eating peyote to better commune with their god are heretics. And so are marijuana smokers around the world - except, perhaps, in Holland. We are subject to arrest, imprisonment, and possible death for our behavior. No - that last sentence is not quite true. Behavior is not really what the persecution is about.
Heresy is essentially a thought-crime.
Authoritarians are not merely interested in controlling behavior. Their true interest is not the body, but the soul. Prohibitionists describe marijuana as a gateway to stronger drugs, a downward-spiraling road to mental and physical debilitation, degradation, disease, and death. There is some truth to this, but only metaphorically. The gateway that marijuana opens leads not to physical death, but to the death of intolerance and blind obedience.