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I have a poetry assignment to do on the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles. What are some literary devices in the song and the general meaning? I have came to the conclusion that the song is about drugs?

Certainly, there are many layers to this song, one of the best from the group and, possibly, one of the most underrated songs of the time period.  If you listen to Henley's read on the song, the message of it is to represent the hedonistic and excess driven lifestyle of Los Angeles and California culture of the late 1970s.  At this time in America, excess and the display of it was emerging as chaos and a sense of uncertainty seemed to grip the nation.  The surface meaning of the song is of a weary traveller who checks into this hotel and understands that its looks of a sanctuary are deceptive, at best.  The poetic devices of the song would be the rhyme scheme is consistent throughout the song, as well as a rhythm and cadence that is very strong.  The images employed in the song also connote excess and grandeur:  "pink champaigne on ice," "tiffany twisted," "mirrors on the ceiling."  There is a mood of entrapment throughout the song, almost as if the characters who are enjoying the excesses of life in the hotel are also ensnared by it.  Notice the description of dancing:  "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget" and "Prisoners of our own device," as well as the closing line help to bring forth the mood that the individuals in the hotel used their spirit of independence to do precisely what they did not wish to do.  The message of drug use could be quite powerful here, but if one hears the words of the writers, there is the direct suggestion that the song was meant to indict the binging type of culture featured in Southern California of the time period.

Since the Eagles were popular in the 1970s, this song is most likely about drugs, and to California numerous "hippies" had migrated as the state was perceived as a land of indulgence and freedom from the conservatism of the older generation. So, the "Hotel California" may be a metaphor for this seventies' condition.  The general meaning of the song seems to be that once one has gone to California--many were runaways, anyway--and become caught up in the drug scene, there is little hope of escape:

You can checkout any time you like (die),/But you can never leave! (addicted)

For one of the runaways, the Hotel California affords shelter; the girl who is "tiffany-twisted" is beautiful and upper-class.  [Tiffany glass is only in the homes of the wealthy.] Another metaphor about her is that she has the "mercedes bends."  Her wealth and addiction are both expressed in this metaphor.  The "bends" is an expression for the condition of a diver who surfaces too quicky from a depth in the sea.  If he/she comes up too fast nitrogen enters his system--much like uncorking a bottle--the results can be painful, even deadly.  This girl who has these "bends," then, may be simply illusionary, representing the seductive enticement of the drugs scene in the Golden State, alluded to here as the Hotel California.

"The voices calling far away,--another metaphor--is the desire for the drugs.  "They stab it with the steely knives,/But they just can't kill the beast" may easily be metaphoric for cutting the cocaine powder; the "beast" is the addiction of which the addicts cannot rid themselves.

Don Henley, lead singer for the Eagles went on to become a solo artist.  In the 1990s he became very involved in the Thoreau society, an environmental society which strives to preserve Walden Pond and other lands.  Thus, it would be in character for Henley, who wrote other songs such as "Dirty Laundry" which is a scathing invective against yellow journalism, to have written another song that defiled the lure of the drug culture.

Well... at least you picked something that will get all us old folks stirred up...

While I agree with the first post about this song being against excess, etc I would argue that it is largely a song about drug addiction.  This is, in fact, what Glen Frey who cowrote the song said it was about.

You can start the drug references with "warm smell of colitas" -- marijuana.

To me, the parts of the song about being unable to kill the beast and being unable to leave are clearly references to addiction.

Furthermore, I've always understood "some dance to remember, some dance to forget" as referring to reasons why people would take drugs.

However, like most poetry (if songs count as such), the meaning is more or less up to the listener.  I can't prove the song is any more about drugs than it is about hedonism, but that's just how I understood it when I was a kid.  (And of course the teachers at the church school I attended said it was about satanic rituals so you can add that in to the theories.)