And often not. Do you favor legality for domestically produced drugs?
drugs weren't a problem until they started becoming a problem,
Only there's no evidence that they were becoming a problem. Note that government say-so is not evidence ... unless you also think we should tightly restrict the 'greenhouse gases' that our government assures us are a deadly problem.
That you keep saying this tells me you haven't researched this topic at all. There were thousands of deaths from patent medicines at the end of the 19th century. The Pure food and drug labeling act was created to force people to explain what was in those medicines. The vast majority turned out to be Cocaine or Opium.