It's important to make a distinction between drugs that cause substance addiction (alcohol, opioids, tobacco) and things that trigger some people's behavioral/impulse addictions, Cannabis, food, sugar, porn.
I find it quite odd anyone would have them in the same category, even if you are not or have ever been a durg user.
Depends on the person. If it's just someone that uses a PC for the browser and doesn't want to learn anything something like popOS or mint would do. If they are ok with learning some Linux/Arch basics, BTRFS + EndeavorOS + KDE is hard to beat and would be my first recommendation