I see a pendulum in motion. When Sherlock Holmes was written, we had a very different view on drug use. Back then, it was a capitalist/libertarian utopia, where folks could generally cook up, sell, and use, pretty much anything they could manage. In the early 20th century, abstinence movements got popular, and everything including alcohol was criminalized. Today, we've got (depending where you live) legal alcohol, legal weed, open sales of hallucinogens, and safe injection sites for opiates.

Meth, weird to me, doesn't appear to be a big priority and it's huge in organized crime. Opiates are the villain of today, and the result of that may lead to a sharper distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs.

There's a big conversation underway about UBI -- opponents see it as encouraging "laziness," which, any honest stoner will admit, cannabis encourages. That could end up swinging the pendulum back the other way. I don't really see any of this as permanent or inevitable