During the 80's and the early 90's, the city of Zurich (Switzerland) had an area where the use of hard drugs was legal. Eventually, in '91, the area was closed because the consequences were disastrous. See for instance: http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/extern/storytelling/needletrauma...

I'm not saying that the use of alcohol is harmless, and surely there will be people who can have an almost normal life while using hard drugs, but the stigma that hard drugs have is not coming out of nowhere.