I'll have to actually read it before coming to a conclusion on the nature vs nurture thing, but I'm open to the idea that it's more nuanced than "everybody can become great with nurture" - it's worth saying that even accepting the premise that one's "nature" holds primacy in determining their outcomes, one's nature, definition ally, is only their "floor", and robust investment in education can help them achieve their "ceiling", raising the overall intelligence of a society.
Also of note, beyond vague notions of IQ as a metric being "flawed" - which it is, so much so that the original creator thereof recommended against using it as a catch-all metric for any individual's "intelligence" - IQ is constantly in flux. This is not to say it's entirely unreliable, but that anything using IQ as a primary metric of intelligence should be taken with a grain of salt, given the inconsistency inherent to it.
This is a first-blush take, as again I haven't read this (it's very dense, I've only just woken up), but I think the correlation between alcohol and specifically nicotine use in individuals considered to be intelligent by the article can be explained by... old people. Given the developed world is, in general, an aging population, and things like drinking and smoking were more accepted at a time when some of our brightest minds today were young, it's entirely possible this trend won't continue, and in fact may reverse, say, forty years in the future.
With that said, I do think it's reasonable to assume "intelligent people", by a more nebulous and popular definition (generally characterized by not just academic intelligence or specialization in a field of study, but also by emotional intelligence, creativity, and charisma), are generally more prone to use certain classes of drugs, especially psychedelics. While, no doubt, certain drugs are purely hedonistic in nature, it's a long tradition among creatives to employ other classes of drugs to assist with their endeavors, and part of me would go so far as to say the war on drugs' heavy-handed approach is part of the reason art seems to be going through a cold period at the moment. But that's just speculation.
