Are Drug Users Smarter Than the Rest of Us? Or Are Too Many Scientists Irresponsible Publicity Hounds?

A particularly vicious meme is being disseminated by ostensibly respectable publications such as Business Insider and Psychology Today, and echoed by a few misguided proponents of decriminalization of drugs, which is that users of illegal street drugs are smarter than the rest of us.

Huh?? Anybody who has ever had to interact with a habitual drug user on a daily basis will be pretty skeptical of the laughable  "findings" of a study whose methodology and veracity are questionable at best; and proponents of drug law liberalization are advised to be cautious about using them as an argument against prohibition. There are many rational arguments against our War on Drugs and  our savage drug laws, but there is no way that anyone can reasonably assert that drug use is good, or that it indicates more intelligence than the Gods gave a yeast culture; and anyone who makes such a claim in order to justify decriminalization of street drugs is damaging the credibility of the anti-prohibition movement,  and justifying its opposition.

According to the Business Insider, the smarter you are, the more likely you are to use recreational drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.The Insider quotes Psychology Today, a lightweight popular publication for non-professional readers, and an organization vaguely identified only as National Child Development, without supplying any links or precise identification for this organization:
"According to Psychology Today, people who use more drugs are more intelligent.  "Intelligent people don't always do the right thing," they write, "only the evolutionarily novel thing." 
According to a study conducted by National Child Development, "more intelligent children in the United Kingdom are more likely to grow up to consume psychoactive drugs than less intelligent children." These drugs include marijuana, cocaine, heroin, alcohol and tobacco."

Not surprisingly, not too many people are buying this, least of all  the people who are involved in dealing with the human destruction wrought by drug addiction and the drug trade. People who have to deal with users on a daily basis can tell you that these people display a lot of interesting traits, but intelligence isn't one of them.

In view of millions of  people whose bodies and lives have been destroyed by drugs, and the millions more who have been destroyed by alcohol, it's extremely difficult to see how anyone can describe as intelligent  the decision to use substances that are powerfully addictive, often cause permanent brain damage, serious illness, and death; destroy the ability to think rationally while triggering violent impulses and criminal behavior; force the user into close contact with violent criminals, put him at risk for arrest and incarceration; and don't even make him feel good.

The scientific community has sacrificed a lot of its former credibility and prestige by publicizing the findings of badly conceived and improperly conducted "studies" that have not been verified or peer-reviewed before releasing them to the uncritical and credulous public, and anti-prohibition activists won't enhance their own by referring to them to support an unpopular stance on a controversial matter of such life-and-death importance as the Drug War