“There are many reasons for the difficulties in addressing America’s drug abuse crisis. One is the inability to shift away from the traditional politics of treating “wars on drugs” as crusades, blaming feared populations for feared drugs — historically, the Chinese and opium and Mexicans and marijuana; in modern times, inner-city residents and crack cocaine. However, when drug abuse is prevalent in a “respectable” demographic such as middle-aged white adults, officials and interests are reluctant to stigmatize a powerful constituency they normally seek to flatter.”
Philip Seymour Hoffmann and the middle-aged drug epidemic — Reuters