And he's got a very good point, kids in the slums do other drugs. Certainly the conventional wisdom, which is all wrapped up in a twisted sort of Victorian morality, is that drug use (and sales) is something done by "those OTHER people", and I agree that the entertainment industry, many of whose members are infamous for doing massive quantities of drugs legal and illegal, has done a lot to further that perception.

I think we've both known plenty of Anglos who used illegal drugs of one sort or another. Some of them quit, some of them didn't; some of them screwed up their lives and became wretched messes or died. Others moved up the distribution chain. Like junk bonds or penny stocks, it combines the chance of making serious money with serious risk.