I agree! Why are these even illegal, they don't cause any harm... Also alcohol should make you legless eventually!!

Not quite right...actual substance abuse, aside from alcohol, was a massive problem throughout the medieval period. A large part of the purges on 'witches' was centred on the fact that many of those who were considered as practitioners of the dark arts were in actual fact users or creators of various drugs, which caused hallucinations or pychotic episodes...these were essentially seen by everyone as 'possessions' or the effects of witchcraft, so those who either suffered from them or caused them were purged. In one particular year (I forget which, it's been a while since I saw the study), in Magdeburg alone, 30 000 witches were executed.

I would argue that potions are drugs. The reason they aren't illegal is that they aren't harmful like Skooma.

They do have all kinds of physiological and mystical effects on the body, like drastically speeding metabolism or raising vast amounts of spiritual power. Some improve performance of particular skills.

Illicit drugs as we think of them, other than the aforementioned, aren't really necessary in a world where their benefits can be obtained without detriments.

Maybe our character needs to 'find out' that potions are harmful? Instead of an illegal Skooma drug ring, maybe pushing cheap low quality potions that make the users addicted and harm them? If the player uses a cheap health potion, some other stat is slowly decreased and a need to use the same potion over and over increases. Maybe increase this dependence by slowly draining health after a few uses. The point is: potions are bad, mkay?

There is of course, the concept that there is some encouragement in-game

Evidence = http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/14417238.jpg

Sam Guevenne. He will dose you up to the eyeballs.

Skyrim isn't in the Medieval age.

actually, hemp cultivation was required by law in medieval times due to it's usefullness. serfs were required to use a certain amount of land to grow hemp by law as a form of property tax.

I was suprised to find alchohol had no effect in the game. It was one of the first things I did before I even escaped Helgen was to down a couple of the Alto Wines and think "huh, that's weird" when nothing happened. It's obviously a consious decision by the developers to avoid any controversy but it reflects poorly on society as a whole when gruesome dismemberment is perfectly acceptable for nearly all age categories but recreational drug use is a serious crime and taboo.

Incidentally, the origin of the word pharmacist is 'one who practices witchcraft' according to the words latin origins. I looked it up one day because I was curious.