I don’t think the drugs have soul or mind, but think they reveal it. As described by Gib allowing you to see your mind from alternative angles or on new levels.
I don’t know about generally, but perhaps in some or many cases. It’s the age proceeding massive hysterical and uninformed drug opposition, which is still prevalent or at least lingering. And drug acceptance is commonly very poor - b-boys and gangsters, immature youths, down and out bums and undesirables, personal issues, social decay and all the rest. The main thing to know about drugs, other than they are a powerful technology for good or evil - like all technology, then - is probably that we are terribly misinformed and uneducated - disregard what you thought you knew. Most drugs, in my experience, don’t induce comedowns. Most are not physically addictive. I think permanent alteration is typically only the consequence of abuse, ad even then only with some drugs. I don’t think you’ll succeed in permanently altering yourself physically with maximum doses of LSD daily for ten years - no physical alterations are found yet. I think the only permanent alterations with non-toxic drugs is personal/mental, and can be for the better or worse but typically for the better, at least with some - psychedelics.
I think we really need to disentangle ourselves from the ideas surrounding drugs to the large part. Gust as people are good in some ways and bad in others, so too are collectives, like professional groups or civilisations. Ideas about drugs on the societal level are comparable (or maybe even are) immature traits or mental illnesses of societies. Whichever side of them you follow (for or against), you basically get harmed.
Many plants are very dangerous - datura, belladonna, fly agaric, mandrake. Man and nature (that the two could be, or should be distinguished - art does not imitate nature, nature imitates art) both make poisons. In some regions (Australia lol, or psychiatry perhaps) we may make more toxic substances than others - but western medicine still get’s the job done. I think we should think of it as a necessary evil and fall back rather than an outright winner - the thing is you evolved over millions of years that your senses might guide you, but being an ancient system your guidance system is suited to the ancient rather than the novel - so your taste buds tell you what to and what not to eat if it comes from the garden or grew wild on a bush (more than not), but don’t necessarily warn you that an e-number or pesticide is toxic. We don’t feel radioactivity for instance, just the physical degradation that follows major exposure.
So shrooms (psilocybes) and mescaline cactuses are super safe - if used respectfully and maturely. Fly agaric is dangerous, as is belladonna. LSD is very safe (again, with respect), whilst 25-i is plain dangerous.
This is what I’m saying though - it’s a dangerous world, but you’re fucked if you don’t play the game. It’s true, but what’s truer is that the fuckest up thing is if you bang 5 tabs and get behind the wheel, then write an ‘exciting!!!’ account of your great trip/car crash on erowid (grrrr).