The greatness of a nation is formed from the virtue of its liberty and integrity of its authority.
Authority without liberty is tyranny, while liberty without authority is anarchy.
In the case of discriminating which substances might be allowed as legitimate intoxicants, we obviously recognize many, if not most intoxicants first effect our ability to perceive and to discern. Unlike many other behaviors, but similar to many lusts, drug use for intoxication must be legislated with bounds placed to identify how such behavior is handled by the society legitimately.
In regards to the clumsy arguments against criminalization of some drugs because it violates free will and our liberty, the Puritans actually had some fairly rigorous studies regarding freedom, liberty, and legislation. One approach is that the regulation of our freedom to protect us from damages caused by such freedom should not exceed the damages of the freedom itself.
In the counterarguments such as, “the Prohibition didn’t work”, the opponent to criminalization of some behaviors misses the purpose of legal systems. I guess there are probably as many legalists out there who foolishly believe that outlawing behavior will eliminate such behavior, just as there are those who think criminalization of behavior fails because people still miss the mark and commit such behaviors.