By the same website, China deaths by alcohol use are also much lower than the West. Is the punishment for alcohol use much more severe in China than it is in the West? Erm, no - in fact none of those countries use the criminal justice system to punish alcohol users. Could it therefore be other factors like societal attitudes as I said in the comment above.

You should also remember that by far the most widely used illegal drug is cannabis (93% in the UK), and it's almost impossible to die from cannabis. About the only way I can think of is if a block of it drops on you from a smuggler's aircraft. So just looking at deaths from drug use isn't so interesting. There are other ways that drugs are both productive and enjoyable, and can be damaging.