The Atlantic examines correlations between drug use and Obama voting, class, employment, and occupation

The Atlantic magazine has been taking a look at the correlation between NSDUH drug-use stats and other socio-economic stats.  It’s quite interesting.

Let’s start with an indicator of politics that’s sure to spark some interest–whether a state voted for Obama or McCain in 2008.

When it comes to the use of illegal drugs overall, there’s no real correlation. But that changes when we look at marijuana and cocaine. Both are significantly and positively related to Obama states. The converse is true of McCain states, where the correlations are negative. Let me reiterate that these are provisional results which point to general relationships–or should I say associations–which could have many causes.

Does that mean you had to have been high to vote for Obama?    Just kidding.  There are far more variables at work here to explain this relationship.  For example, maybe McCain voters under-report their marijuana and cocaine use.  Maybe people that can afford marijuana and cocaine tend to vote for Obama.  Maybe it’s just geography and culture; the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West just don’t use marijuana and cocaine.

The conventional wisdom is that economic hardship is a key factor in drug use. Anyone who watches crime shows like The Wire gets this picture really fast.

To get a first approximation of this, we examined the relationship between drug use and unemployment. Not surprisingly, the use of illegal drugs is correlated with state unemployment (.31). And the correlations are even a bit higher when we look at marijuana (.36) and cocaine use (.36).

But things get more interesting when we look at the relationship between drug use and economic development. While there is no relationship between economic output and illegal drug use overall, there is a significant relationship between state economic output and marijuana, and an even stronger correlation between economic output and cocaine use, as the charts below show.

Well, when failing a pre-employment or random drug test costs you your job and marijuana is so easily detectable for so long, the unemployment figures should be no surprise.  That marijuana-using states have higher GDP isn’t surprising as any hard-working employed cannabis consumer will tell you.  The cocaine figure is even less surprising; who couldn’t put in more hours on a few lines of blow?

[Let's compare] the creative class–that is, people who work in knowledge-based, artistic, and professional occupations; and the working class–those who work in production, transportation, and construction jobs.While the associations between drug use overall are weak, the patterns for marijuana and cocaine are significant. Take the creative class: both marijuana and cocaine use are positively and significantly related to states with higher concentrations of the creative class.

Now look at the results for the working class, where the pattern is reversed. Both marijuana and cocaine are negatively and significantly related to the concentration of working class jobs in state.

I’d say this is also an effect from workplace drug testing.  Not many technerds, musicians, painters, sculptors, lawyers, or doctors are pee tested, but factory workers, truck drivers, and construction hands are.  I’d like to see the correlation of alcohol drinking statistics to these two classes; I’d bet the correlations are reversed.

Occupations sort relatively neatly along the lines of marijuana versus cocaine use. The short of it is that marijuana use is more positively associated with science (.35), education (.38), artistic professions (.35), and engineering and architecture (.29), while cocaine use is positively associated with lawyers (.41) and, to a lesser extent, with business and finance occupations (.27), computer jobs (.25), and management fields (.26).

Drug use overall is significantly associated with the state-wide concentrations of three major types of occupations – science (.35), architecture and engineering (.34), and arts, design, and entertainment (.33). And, in all three cases, this correlation appears to be driven by marijuana use; none of them are significantly associated with cocaine. Management occupations are also positively associated with overall drug use, though the correlation (.26) is somewhat weaker.

Coked-up lawyers?  Did they survey our NORML Legal Committee?  That would’ve swung the pendulum back toward marijuana!

As for scientists, teachers, artists, engineers, and architects, is it any surprise they would turn to the safest recreational substance and one that is legendary for provoking creativity?