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Comment by electromagnetic | Hacker News Reader

I think there's potentially lots of reasons why a high IQ would lead to drug/alcohol use.

Stress for me is a killer, by Friday night if I've had a hard week I'm either wishing I still had a pot dealer or I'm hitting up the liquor store for some whiskey.

Similarly high IQ is linked to depression, again likely for a mix of reasons from social isolation (aka being smarter than everyone) and having a greater ability for introspection into ones life (aka I could have done more with my life, etc.). Depression is often a major factor in alcoholism and drug abuse.

The question I wonder is does a high IQ predetermine what drugs a person is going to use. Smart people I've noticed seem to target pot and hallucinogenics. It always seems to be the idiots and suggestibles that end up with the heroin addiction.

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"It always seems to be the idiots and suggestibles that end up with the heroin addiction."

Really? You mean like, W.S. Burroughs, Kurt Cobain, Patrick Kroupa, Edgar Allen Poe (although he used opium), Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John Belushi, Jim Morrison, and a lot of other people who like to keep their addictions hidden least they be stigmatized as junkies?

I know it's so tempting to just classify a certain class of people as undesirables based on what drugs they prefer or what their skin color is, but that's not smart.

Couldn't agree more. Having spent some time living near a lot of junkies, it seems the people that got addicted to heroin were the people who tried heroin. You could hardly say they were idiots to try heroin - the pushers are fairly good marketers, get somebody fucked drunk, give them some cocaine and ectasy, and then a hot girl convinces them to try it, and they have a (brief) lifetime customer.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/heroin.html about 23% of users become dependent. Alcohol has 15% addiction rate, I believe.

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is merely a cheap and potent painkiller, cheaper than other popular ones like oxycodone. It's used in UK to treat severe pain. It's not the strongest one out there (fentanyl is stronger), nor will it make you addicted instantly.

You will probably get addicted if you have easy access and some recurrent pain issues: psychological or physical. A lot of people start off with prescription pharma, and then as their prescription or money runs out, they are forced to use cheaper street alternatives like h.

Others just like to nod once in a while, and only a small part, I believe, makes heroin their ultimate priority enough, willing to kill their own grandmother for a fix. Unfortunately, those junkies are also the most vocal and noticeable ones.

I mean, heroin is not entirely safe and it's very pleasant and it can be addictive just because it's so fucking nice. But I think a lot of people use the idiotic societal stereotypes to justify their own lack of maturity to handle detox, and right now, with the plethora of unaddictive painkillers, rehab, methadone, suboxone, support groups, antidepressants detoxing is easier than ever.

Ha ha ha. Professional statistician here. Drug statistics are shit. There just completely shit. I mean, really, you just can't measure that stuff. Nobody tells you anything, it's dangerous as hell, and when people do tell you stuff, they are usually lying, to you and to themselves. In good quality, controlled experiments, results are still pretty open to interpretation.

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