Paul in his epistle to the Galatians enumerated a concise list of the works of the flesh. Contained in that list is the Greek word, pharmakeia. The King James scholar translated pharmakeia as "witchcraft" but a more probable rendering is that of "sorcery" and is so given by the American Standard Version. Sorcery is far closer to the meaning of the term.
Pharmakeia (sorcery) is a form of the Greek root from which we get our English words pharmacy, pharmacist, and pharmaceutical. Pharmakeia (sorcery) fundamentally has to do with drugs or medicine. Originally the word was used only in the sense of medicine. Plato talked about the different kinds of medicinal treatment: cautery, incision, the use of drugs (pharmakeia), and even starvation. (Plato, Protagorus 354a). In the beginning, pharmakeia was a medical term; it had to do with the proper use of drugs.
Later pharmakeia took on an entirely different meaning. The learned William Barclay says that pharmakeia began "to denote the misuse of drugs, that is, the use of drugs to poison and not to cure. So we read about the law regarding poisoning (Plato, Laws 933 B), and Demosthenes accuses a bad man of poisoning and all kinds of villainy (Demosthenes 40.57). This is the beginning of the bad use of the word" (Flesh And Spirit, p. 36)
In the New Testament, pharmakeia carried with it the idea of sorcery, occultism, and black magic. It is in this sense that Paul used the term in Galatians 5.20. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia clearly points out that "since the ideas we attach to 'witch' and 'witchcraft' were unknown in Bible times, the words (witch and witchcraft) have no right place in our' Eng. Bible..." (p. 3097). When Paul spoke of pharmakeia (witchcraft KJV) he certainly did not have in mind witches on broomsticks, black cats, and silly superstitions. The Apostle was speaking of sorcery -- the evil abuse of drugs.
The Greek scholar, W.E. Vine summarized the different uses of pharmakeia in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Said Vine of pharmakeia: "primarily signified the use of medicine, drugs, spells; then, poisoning; then sorcery." It is at this point the dark and grim fact of pharmakeia emerges. Pharmakeia literally is the abuse of drugs coupled with the occult. Pharmakeia is a chain connecting drug addiction with sorcery!