I think @Orbit made a very good point! Some people cannot have just one glass of beer or a couple of weed hits. They have to have it all, mainly because they feel a void inside (some of them despite being extremely successful people) and seek refuge in alcohol or drugs. I don't see how drugs can impede your success if you're truly cognizant of your purpose. The best guitar melodies I have come up with were from the time when I was high. Hell, I even have a notebook filled with stand-up comedy materials that I continue to write when I get high. That doesn't mean that I'm unfunny when I'm not high, but drugs (for me marijuana) make me look at things from different angles. I'll share a true story with you:

About a week ago, I was high on weed with a couple of my friends when suddenly this idea came rushing to my head. Do you know how a lot of people (especially Europeans) think of the US as a nation of arrogant assholes? I imagined looking at the Earth from space and thinking about the most luminous country on its surface if every contribution to humanity was represented as a light bulb in its place of origin, and obviously I couldn't think of any country other than America despite its very young history. I thought about how the US is the focal point of virtually everything in the world. Then, it got me thinking: even if 50% of Americans were really like that, we would be talking about an extremely modest nation!

Now, tell me drugs aren't good!

Maybe that's why they're winners?

I've actually done a bit of study on drug influences on thinkers and creators in more than just the arts. Many great enlightenments came after a good session. And as a forest creature, psychoactives have made us fall out the tree many times and land on new thinking. Where would we be without them??

I think the "Drug War" has given us a simplistic view of drugs as "good" or "bad". The reality of the matter is that some very successful people are able to. use drugs and remain healthy and productive. Others can't seem to be able to do that. I just got finished reading a book on the subject, and they talk about addiction for most problematic users being the symptom of a broken life, If you take away the pain, you take away the drug use. Of course, that makes for complex solutions that can't be explained in a 5 second sound bite, so policy-makers tend to ignore that approach.