Thats a rather modern view for a practice that may be as old as humanity itself. Your comment doesn't explain why Alcohol was popular when cocaine and other opiates didn't carry negative associations.
(Note that you'll find some internet sites claiming this is a myth. I don't find their arguments compelling at all: most seem to argue that water was drunk as well - which is no doubt true.)
[1] http://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/news/county-news/latest-new...
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1w3e4v/how_dr...
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/health#wiki_drink...
I'm not one of those who claim beer was drunk instead of water - I'm just pointing out that the more positive association of alcohol compare to other drugs does have some kind of possible historic and scientific basis.
We've rewritten history to help ignore this, but they were quite popular.
Laudanum used to be heavily used in the US, and even Sherlock Holmes was written to be a regular, casual user of cocaine (Dr. Watson viewed it as "his only vice", such as a smoker of tobacco pipes, but had no medical objection to it).
Actually, he did. Watson tells Holmes early on (in The Sign of the Four, I think) that using cocaine might damage his powers of observation and deduction; and in the stories after Holmes' return, Watson mentions several times that he felt obliged as a medical man to wean Holmes from the drug, and that he gets worried when there is a long period without Holmes having a case because Holmes might be tempted to start using the drug again.
But, consider that cocaine is a "new world" drug, specific to the South American continent, as an indigenous herbal extract, mostly until the 19th century, when highly purified extacts became a popular part of western society.
Meanwhile use of opiates dates back to ancient times, given that Opium is dead simple to produce. But again, it was really in the 19th century when good equipment, and precise measuing tools permitted chemists and drugists to purify highly addictive perparations of the wider variety of drugs. Prior to that, the poppy's medicinal qualities were known and used, but expertise and well-crafted instruments which could readily facilitate powerful extracts weren't as widespread. Otherwise, people were limited to whatever was grown locally, and would be required to cultivate and harvest their own supply, instead of relying on trade.