You get a lot of history and also the experiences of a pretty normal person. A lot of information about psychedelics comes from people who take a lot of drugs. I am generally not interested in taking substances so I could relate to this book more than other material.
I would agree with this. He does a great job at describing things more like a "normal person" than a hardcore drug user/experimenter.
I actually disagree with Pollan on what he thinks drug laws should be. He generally supports decriminalization of some things like mushrooms, but then supports heavy state paternalism by keeping them restricted from any recreational use.
Still, a great read and I really appreciate his work.
In general with a lot of authors I prefer hearing their analysis and their experiences and tend to not care much for their solutions. Like you I tend to disagree with thoughts about restrictions but the writing about history and what he experienced is very good. Same could be said for Marx: His analysis of what capitalism is and where it leads is right on but then his solutions are a little questionable.
Definitely worth a read.