Under the Influence

Polarized biases surrounding drug use.

An opulent, postmodern Los Angeles manor hosts an intimate collaboration between a platinum American Express card and a glistening white assortment. The snowy powder aligns and forms a perfect route to euphoria. A charming figure modeled with elegant locks, a spotless complexion, and designer wardrobe matches her nose to the pile and inhales. She thrusts back and accepts the cocaine’s advance, empowering her to reach a divine sense of reality. Across from her, the television broadcasts the dangers of crack. Dressed with decaying drags and a sloppy demeanor, dispositions of delinquents parade along the slums. The program narrows its focus upon the pipes meddled between their claws. They menace for their next high. Meanwhile, our stunner collapses from her tower of elation. Just as cocaine butchers her beauty, doped-out bums manifest as the looming consequence for abusing drugs. Why do we as a society stigmatize drug-use with distinction? Impoverished communities appear sinister while high-class individuals attract charisma. They rehearse the same drug, with the same composition, and for the same stimulation, but are depicted as polar opposites. Societies’ contrasted stigma on drugs, despite parallel abuse, enables a normalized passiveness towards wealth inequality.

Crack vs Coke: Right in our faces

Hollywood’s infatuation with cocaine idealizes the stimulant as a trademark of success. The film industry’s consistent marketing of the drug dates as far back as the silent film era. The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) analyzes a crowned detective who routinely dabbles with stimulants and opioids to reward his achievements. Cocaine further clutched its notoriety through edgy grit stories like Scarface (1983) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Each romanticizes the ’80s rise in crime rates by portraying Mia Wallace and Elvira Hancock as martyrs. Current works continue to capitalize on the substance, portraying it as a necessity amongst professional bread-winners akin to Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000) and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). While the enlisted examples portray cocaine in a rather excitable manner, Requiem for a Dream (2000) encompasses the catastrophic spiral of addiction to heroin, and aptly, amphetamines like crack. Here, the disturbed characters fall far below the means of wealth compared to Hollywood’s cocaine hotshots. Consequently, crack in this movie does not garner the same praise as coke. Instead, crack elicits an eerie, disconnected consciousness intended to trouble the audience. Mainstream media likewise does not favor adverse types of amphetamines. In response to the 1970-80s crack boom, Nancy Reagan employed an anti-drug campaign which, quite literally, encouraged children to “Just Say No” to drugs. While her intentions were decent, Reagan set the stage for drug discrimination. Not only did this label those who fell victim to drug use (and addiction) as immoral, but the biased media spurred its attention upon inner-city, marginalized communities.

Ivy League Adderall vs. Opioid Epidemic

Drug stigmatization is not limited to the extremities of crack-cocaine. Rather, common forms of narcotics sweep our nation’s households, schools, workplaces, and right under our noses. Prescription drugs are just as likely, if not more, to be abused than crack-cocaine. The national fervor surrounding Adderall and opioids sparked in the 1990s; the past 30 years reflect annual increases in the percentage of children diagnosed with ADHD, as well as the amount of adults who qualify for disability benefits. Adderall and opioid prescriptions positively correlate with those prospective groups. This trend catalyzes an adaptive generation of drug dealers. Our newfound peddlers barter within two susceptible communities: universities and Appalachia. The cost of higher education surges annually while the subsequent job market dwindles. This relationship ferments a growing sense of competition among the youth: Adderall’s targeted demographic. Adderall considerably spiked in the mid-1990s, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 promoted public school districts to encourage low-performing students for ADHD evaluation. In doing so, students would be prescribed cognitive enhancing drugs until scores improve. This augmented productivity, which increased school standards and prevented them from losing state and federal funding. In many cases, socioeconomic inequalities lessen youth preparedness for school and conditions them to develop behavioral issues. While studies found that non-Hispanic black children attracted greater ADHD diagnoses, children who were white and had higher family incomes were more likely to actually receive medication. Furthermore, non-Hispanic white children were approximately three times more likely than Hispanic children to receive Medicaid coverage for ADHD. Under this gap, insurance and healthcare expenditures increased 594% towards attention disorders between 1994 and 2003, outspending heart disease and asthma. These clear racial disparities in healthcare shows how we perceive prescription abuse, resembling that of the crack-cocaine relationship. Adderall is prevalent and often overprescribed in well-off communities while opioids like oxycontin are overprescribed to the vulnerable and impoverished. Both, however, are sought as aids to improve socioeconomic status. Students desperately cling to Adderall for its rampant academic boost. Extremely accessible on college campuses, about two-thirds of students reported being offered the stimulant at one point through trusted connections (friends/roommates). A necessity within the Ivy League, students are forced to meet the demand of a highly competitive academic culture and foreshadowing workforce. Approximately 1 in every 5 Ivy League students admit to trying Adderall as a study aid. Out of those students, 24% reported using on eight or more occasions, which exhibits a lack of financial restraints amid their high demand. Ivy League students typically already derive support from high earning, privileged backgrounds. Adderall welcomes a threshold that enables a high rate of return akin to the standard of success within their households. This begs an even greater question: If entitled students acquire a drug that enhances susceptibility to success, will they glamorize cocaine use within their group in society? On the other side of the narcotic spectrum sits the opioid epidemic. Rural Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia elicited the highest physical disability rates in the nation amongst adults. They contracted the highest opioid prescription rates in 2010-12, as well as greatest opioid-related mortalities in the United States. Unlike our Adderall affiliates, these abusers come from extremely unfortunate and belittled economic conditions. The Applalacian mountains isolate its inhabitants to a limited job market, impairing opportunities to build wealth. Employment consists of unskilled labor like lumber and mining, jobs inclined toward work-related injuries. Research suggests that these economic conditions prompt workers to claim disability so they can harvest government aid, but this disability also appoints them to qualify for pain relieving medications. Significant portions of opioid addicts spiral after taking prescriptions for surgeries. Physicians, as encouraged by major pharmaceutical companies, blatantly overprescribed and, in some cases, sent over 100 nonessential pills home following procedures like knee surgery. Adderall’s grand intent of prescriptions parallels those of opioids. Do we view Adderall as a lessened issue because of the privilege these students have, potentially allowing them easier access to rehabilitation? Why are only opioids seen as problematic when Adderall discriminately over-prescribes to children and is later abused by developing students?

Systemic implications

Big Pharma, the government, and our justice system permit prejudice. Driven by greed, the government allows the pharmaceutical establishment to prosper due to the money it attracts and bids. In the case of Purdue Pharma, the government not only allowed misleading marketing, they profited from it as well. Purdue offered Curtis Wright, the then chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a position as well as a $400,000 compensation package if the FDA approved oxycontin for mass consumption. The FDA responded by overlooking regulations, rejecting consumer safety, and authorizing a highly addictive drug for selfish, dubious gains. These errors call to the justice system. During the ’80s crack epidemic, President George H. W. Bush pressured law enforcement to strike down on inner-city minorities. This crackdown ignited the mass incarceration of Black individuals while ignoring mainstream use within society’s inner circles. Was this the government’s way of cementing class and wealth division among segregated populations? While the establishment worked to breach harmony, major cocaine distributors in Miami defeated the courts. Sal Magluta, the drug kingpin of Miami, was eventually indicted for overseeing the sale of over 75 tons of cocaine. He bought the best lawyers to defend him and paid off three jurors to win his case. Because of the millions of dollars he suspiciously accumulated through cocaine, he was able to defeat the same courts that prosecute millions of individuals for lesser crimes. Each example is not an enigma: they reflect the oligarchical ties that top officials and earners in the United States have with one another. The systemic implications surrounding all types of drug abuse normalizes the consequences each class endures. Corporations and the government have an alliance to lobby for their own wealth. The justice system often makes indirect conclusions about cases based on wealth. The stigmas we adopt derive from what we see demonstrated on the political playground.

Classy when you’re rich, trashy when you’re poor. 

Our contrasting stigmas derive from the media’s consistent narrative. Hollywood glamorizes cocaine by enabling us to admire the iconic figures who savor it. They frame drugs as exclusive. Through social media’s image obsessive, herd mentality reality, the appeal only heightens. This same notion was capitalized on in the ’80s through the “Just Say No” campaign, which created a stereotype of drug abusers. The government expanded the divide through oligarchical permissiveness and targeted punishment. These patterns fuse through testimonials in the media that depicts some drugs as elitist and others degenerative. Realistically, all drugs are bad. Crack and cocaine are identical. Adderall and opioids are extremely addictive. Drug use in general disrupts the chemical balances of the body. However, we as a society have constructed versions that deviate from this authentic fact. Our country promises that all people can achieve wealth, but establishes obstacles and fallacies in doing so. Perhaps now is the time to stigmatize our romanticization of America’s drugged out dream.

Image courtesy of Flickr under the Creative Commons