I suppose it's pretty much the same with most similar plants or plant products, or fungi, humans have used, some doses and controlled use can be beneficial, larger ones or more frequent use not. Alcohol, cannabis, nicotine in tobacco - there seem to be claims that nicotine may even have a beneficial effect on Alzheimer's, and some other neurological problems, improves insulin sensitivity (might explain why tobacco once was popular with women who tried to lose weight, it actually can help) and so on.

But with nicotine you probably are not going to get more good stuff if you smoke than you get the bad effects. And if you get addicted, which it does to most if used regularly, you will most likely start to use too much.

So - controlled use, small doses.

The problem with all of those substances compared to even a couple of hundred years ago, much less back when they were first discovered by humans before written history, is that they are now both too easy to get, and are addictive. When you had to do something like wait until the certain mushrooms or plants were available in the forest, then collect and preserve them, then use what you had managed to get so that it would last through the whole year until the next season when those plants or mushrooms grew, well not going to be using a lot but leave the stuff for either to be used as some sort of medicine, or if for entertainment, only for very special occasions.

And then even after people started agriculture and grew larger crops, the plants still grew only on certain areas, and when traded were more expensive so most people still used them in smaller doses and less frequently because they had to use their resources for rather more important things like food, and the real addicts were a smaller group.

About alcohol, there is btw an interesting study about its use in my country, Finland. Finns are now known as people who often use too much and have a culture that even encourages getting blind drunk when you do use. But that one study of historical use of alcohol here actually found out that once upon a time Finns seem to have been moderate users. A few hundred years ago, when we were still a part of Sweden. So, at that time most alcohol was rather weak beer that was brewed in the homes of the people, and they'd use it daily, but then there usually were some in the neighborhood who knew how to make the stronger stuff, and would sell some to their neighbors. Steady supply of fairly affordable stuff. And people would mostly do something like get a few drinks for the sauna evenings.

Then the Swedish crown decided to monopolize alcohol for the crown. The government would give permits to make it and to sell it, but you had to have one of those before you could do either or you were punished, and they collected taxes from both the makers and the sellers.

So it became expensive and hard to get.

And the habits of using it changed radically. Now, when people could get it they used more, and getting drunk became acceptable and even sought after because it meant you had the money to get it, and with most, they had no guarantee as to when they could get it next.