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Notes -
I would largely put it down to severity of the imposition. It's not exactly positive restrictions versus negative restrictions, but that is a component of it.
To adhere to all Covid regulations and suggestions, you had to
1: Wear a mask whenever you go outside. This requires you to buy a mask, remember the mask exists, have this thing on your face restricting your breating and constantly reminding you of its existence, be unable to see the faces of the people you interact with, and have your adherence be publicly displayed.
2: Not travel to places or spend time with friends and family as much as usual. Not go to work for several months, possibly having severe repercussions on your finances. Change your entire daily routine, and that of your family. Watch your kids miss several months of proper schooling. Have you and your family potentially suffer negative mental health effects.
3: Inject yourself with a newly invented vaccine that may or may not work or be safe (it does work and is probably safe, but that's hard for a 100 IQ person to know when everyone is lying constantly). Multiple times, because apparently the first one isn't good enough.
This was a huge deal. The entire country changed, for years. The economy took a huge blow leading to supply chain issues and massive inflation that it still hasn't recovered from (though part of that is that it rolled into the Russia sanctions, but the bulk of it was Covid). And the rules kept changing every week and people had to keep paying attention and changing their behavior in response. The Covid lockdowns were a big deal. You can argue that Covid itself was a big deal and therefore it was worth the cost, but it was a huge cost.
Meanwhile, to adhere to recreational drug restrictions I have to.... do nothing. I can literally do nothing, go about my daily life, and be in compliance with the restrictions. I can not damage my health by inhaling or injecting foreign substances, and not spend my money on a thing that I don't need or want. People who don't know that recreational drugs exist are in compliance with these restrictions, because it's a restriction against doing something, not requiring you to do something, and it's not something most people want to do anyway. It has literally no impact on the majority of people, so they don't care. You might compare it to if the government outlawed Skiing or something. People would get upset and protest that the restriction was stupid, pointless, authoritarian and evil. But they would be less upset than the Covid lockdowns, because most of them would not be impacted and could comply by simply going about their daily lives not Skiing. And if Skiing had already been illegal for decades then people probably wouldn't get that upset about it, because they wouldn't have made it into a hobby they enjoy or bought equipment for it in the first place.
The ability to use recreational drugs is just not a big deal for most people.
I am a firm proponent of legalization, but I'd say this makes some sense. I am personally much more upset about the consequences of the drug bans (and the horrible "War on Drugs") and the theoretical loss of freedom aspect of it than by actual hardships involved in being personally unable to consume drugs (which for marijuana in the US is none anyway, you can get it practically anywhere easily, even if it's not legal there), especially since I never had any desire to consume any (besides alcohol). This does not apply to medical marijuana though - the fact that marijuana is still officially considered by Federal government as Schedule I - i.e. having zero medical uses - is a colossal idiocy. Everybody knows it's a lie and it harms a lot of people, and still this persists. But for recreational purposes - yes, I'd say the direct effect of such a ban on me is pretty much zero. I still oppose it on the other grounds, but probably I'd feel much less upset than about something that involved personally infringing my freedom and making my personal life worse. Such as COVID lockdowns, for example, which did insane, totally infuriating amount of harm.
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