Drugs

In an article in The Spectator last week Alan Massie wrote about Malcolm Lowry, the novelist. Lowry was a drunk; he wrote a few novels, most well received, one in particular regarded as a masterpiece - "Under the Volcano". Massie wrote "Drunk, he nevertheless noticed and took in and would later make use of things that the sensible and sober never so much as glimpse."
On "Desert Island Discs" last week A.C.Grayling, the philosopher, said he had never taken drugs or was a drinker of alcohol because he wanted his mind to be clear always, he did not want drugs to interfere with the logic of his thoughts.
Aldous Huxley would have not approved of Grayling's view; Huxley took drugs to enhance his capacity to think, maybe to open windows to ideas that sober people simply do not, can not, imagine.
Who is right?
Both probably. After all, Lowry and Huxley were writers of fiction - artists. Grayling is a down-to-earth philosopher who wants to see the world as it is, not as it might be.