From the point of view of The Stones and much of their audience, this hit exposes the hypocrisy of the proto soccer moms (and Roger Kaputnik from Mad Magazine type dads,for that matter) in using pills and, by extension, booze to get them through the day but condemning others for using other drugs. Have heard it a million times, and don't liten to it much anymore, but it's a great song.

This is about drugs. About drug problems. Of course, by then they were looking down on people who took uppers, in favor of what many including the Stones most likely believed were the "evolved" drugs - pyschodelics. Uppers had become mundane.