[lazerpants]

By and large I think wealthier people have more incentives to limit their drug use. They have hobbies, jobs, etc, that they probably enjoy and don't want to ruin via drug use. On the other hand when everything in your life sucks because you're completely broke there's very little reason to not use more drugs, if they are the only thing you get to enjoy.

So the mental image of meth as a poor person drug exists possibly because poor people bear a greater burden of the damage it causes.

[cosmicglee]

I take the opposite view.

I think it's more that when wealthy people use/abuse drugs, they have a way bigger financial, social, and medical safety net, so that their drug use ends up having a far smaller (and less publicly noticeable) impact on their lives and future opportunities.

Yes, people with less access to financial security have more statistical drug use, but the statistics might also be skewed by

1. the fact that non-wealthy people have more interaction with State-funded services (police, rehab, therapy, prisons), which track and report drug use more systematically & robustly than the obscenely-expensive, private, and very discreet rehab facilities the wealthy have access to

2. because of the aforementioned safety net, there's simply less likelihood of a wealthy person being 'caught' using drugs by an entity that would report those statistics (police, schools, etc).

The higher one's poverty rate, the more vulnerable one is to having their actions scrutinized, catalogued, and punished by the State.

[stuntkite]

This is a good breakdown and I agree 100%. No one ever reports using meth or heroin for 5 years with no legal consequence and then just moving on. There are a couple studies that show that there is a type of drug user that may be massively uncounted for. They take a turn into substance abuse/dependance after a trauma. Loss of a loved one, a breakup, loss of a job, serious injury, etc. The main study I read on the issue said the average arc of the people they could find to self report was about 5 years.

Almost all of our drug statistics are based on interactions with police which produce legal consequences for a medical issue. All that said, I'm not saying "drugs are more safe than previously thought!" just that most of our public knowledge and legislation is about incarceration and leaves out an invisible population. The study was a few years old, I believe it was done just as the opiate epidemic came into view and well before anyone knew what carfentanyl was. Opiates affected rich white people's children has widened out the understanding a bit and migrogram opiates put a lot more people in front of police and medical. Also microgram opiates pop up in a lot of drugs that aren't supposed to contain them so I think that changes some things too.

A quick google has not produced this study or related, but if I find it, I'll tag it back in an edit.

[newbie789]

Incredibly well put!

[newbie789]

I can see your reasoning there, but from what I’ve seen that’s simply not the case in a really meaningful way.

Drugs as a whole are incredibly expensive as a lifestyle. Often times you’ll hear about poor people committing crime to support their habits and it’s understandable to think that they use drugs at a higher rate.

However more affluent people can simply afford the drugs, so when you hear about the mistakes they make while intoxicated it’s framed in a different narrative. Instead of some random poor person doing a robbery for meth, you read a story about a Hollywood actor getting into a car accident or a popular sports player committing sexual assault, or a singer going to a “retreat for exhaustion.”

This group has much more ability to control the story.

Humans are humans. The value proposition of “awake, alert, focused, euphoric, horny” appeals to people equally regardless of one’s bank balance.

Rich people aren’t noticeably smarter about avoiding these pitfalls as far as I can tell. They have bad days, make bad decisions, and develop bad habits just like everybody else.