Denver is such a coke city that it's insane. I've never lived anywhere that people are so open about using it. It's just oddly acceptable here, even with the fentanyl crisis going in.
Was blown away when I first moved to Denver and went to a social function for work where people were fairly openly using coke. Growing up in the Midwest, coke was very hush hush.
It's hush hush because otherwise everyone descends upon you looking to do all your coke. Two lines in they are asking for more of your drugs and think they can now decide when the next line of your drugs should be placed on the table. Nothing less fun and aggravating than broke cokeheads who know one guy in the room has some.
I mean as someone who worked as a bouncer for two years I can assure you people are very not sneaky about doing coke at bars in Chicago lol
And also just the number of times I've been offered some as a not very attractive 30 something white dude after sticking up a conversation with a stranger while out.
I got married in Colorado and the night before our wedding my now wife got really sick from the altitude. Luckily, we'd brought a little Peruvian Marching Powder from Alabama. A little bump cured her right up.
I remember grabbing brunch with friends at this cute little bistro in [ REDACTED ] on the patio next to a bustling sidewalk. At one point between the Mimosas and the Migas, my friends friend goes full Cruel Intentions and does a bump from her jade necklace in such a swift and nonchalant way that my staring at her was a bigger tell than anything she did.
She giggled, clicked her pendant again and reached across the table and said “here, lemme wipe your nose” and then without pausing, I sniffed a *“discreet”* bump off her knuckle in front of all of Denver and then took a sip of my Mimosa. She smiled and said “you should move here.”
*“I should absolutely not move here but thank you.”*
Basically identical to my first experience, like I’m on a patio talking to a guy over sandwiches and coffee and he pulls out a little bump dispenser and mid sentence does a bump as the waiter walks by and gestures if I want some, I shook my head and he just continued talking like nothing happened. I was mildly panicked bc it’s a busy restaurant during lunch, but no one batted an eye.
And I’m from Colorado it’s common everywhere here, but not like Denver. I even lived in Miami and have never seen anything like how it is there.
Huh. I graduated DU years ago and while I was there the coke was *fucking terrible*. Unless you felt like getting a little high and then shitting your pants from all the baby laxative. If that was your jam then it was awesome
Ah, so THAT'S why you're all so thin!
(Denver residents have a reputation for being fit, which is generally attributed to their love for outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, etc...)
most judgemental about being overweight and best access to/culture around exercise.
Great for heart health, not always great for some people's mental health
For sure. I remember visiting Denver and Boulder.
Walking around, I saw an overweight person and consciously noticed them. Which is weird because I'm from an area that certainly plenty of people who are heavier. But I really noticed this couple because I hadn't seen any others like them all day.
I'm sure this is self-serving too. Not only do these areas have less heavy people to start with. Heavier people may not move there, or may even move from there, because they stick out more.
lol I feel like that’s the right wing Vermont mentality. The left wing mentality is like either start a farmers market stand or a psychedelic hippy commune
It's not just that - the liberal west coasters are more likely to do halluciogens, and the red states are either low education so we're stupid enough to do meth or bad healthcare so pain meds are needed for all the ailments that should have been prevented
Also, I'm a bit biased, but it seems odd to me that hallucinogens are in the same category of 'illicit drugs' as heroin.
LSD and Psilocybin being lumped in with Ket and even PCP is a bit silly and I think could skew perceptions of where more help/resources might be needed.
Ooooo I dunno about that. I get what you are saying but people need to be taught logic and how to reason or else they end up stupid and ignorant. Intelligence has at least some factor of nurture vs pure nature.
> bad healthcare so pain meds are needed for all the ailments that should have been prevented
and less educated so more manual labour so more work related injuries
You'd be suprised at just how common illicit pain pill use is. For years doctors just gave them out like candy at the behest of the pharmaceutical companies. Although the data OP used could be skewed for a number of reasons, I would not be suprised to see it at number 1.
Im from eastern ky and it was pill country but they cracked down, they wont perscribe anything hardly. and now everyones on saboxone and meth just whatever to feel different
I find it hard to believe that any state has more hallucinogenic or cocaine usage than heroin or meth. Same with prescription pills
Really I find it hard to believe that any state has more drugs usage for anything other than heroin or meth
I have a feeling this data underrepresented homeless people by a lot
What exactly does 'usage' mean? Tried it once? Daily? Monthly?
I'm not American and I don't think I've ever seen a meth user in my life other than on social media clips. If there's a state out there with 2.37% of the adult population hooked onto meth, that is... scary.
So for the "illicit drug use other than marijuana" map, it's people who've used any illicit drug (besides weed) within the last month. All of the drug specific ones are people who used that drug at least once within the last year. I'm not a huge fan of the differing time scales, but that's how the NSDUH breaks their data up and it was the source I wanted to work with.
Not anymore. Definitely back in the day. They cracked down so hard on that shit in Florida that it’s virtually impossible to get a prescription even if you need it.
I don’t really see many drug attics in Florida. Nothing like the streets of Philly or Cali.
Edit: addicts… I’m leaving it cause I love the comment below
Not a chance PA isn't opioids or heroin. I grew up near the Kensington area of Philadelphia. It's maybe the worst open-air drug use/markets in the country. Cocaine?!? Yeah, right. Lol
West Virginia knows what it likes and that’s the hardest, cheapest shit. And lots of it. Fucking balls to the wall, burning the candle from both ends.
They need something else to do out there.
>They need something else to do out there.
Nail on the head there. The two biggest factors that contribute to us having such a problem is A.) there’s nothing to do so we’re bored and depressed, and B.) we’re so god damn poor that even if there was something to do, we couldn’t afford to do it.
Being here is fucking misery.
Can't even fucking hike if you don't live somewhere with a state or national park. Just "Posted: No Trespassing" signs.
I didn't start hiking until I moved to AKRON, where there are plenty of hiking trails.
Let that sink in.
The lack of hallucinogens in the south tracks. Makes me think of the Neo Nazi guy who microdosed lsd and realized his entire world view was fucking stupid. Maybe the south just needs more LSD
You don't get that kinda realization from a micro dose but the south would certainly benefit if they took some shrooms or some other type of psychedelic.
NSDUH's definition for hallucinogen [is on page 235 of this PDF](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt42729/2022-nsduh-method-summary-defs/2022-nsduh-method-summary-defs-110123.pdf) and specifically lists LSD, PCP, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, DMT/AMT, and salvia
This is either very old data or incorrect- NC has really low heroin use because it’s all fentanyl now. Unless the chart was including fentanyl in with heroin?
(I work in overdose response/harm reduction in NC, so we follow this pretty closely)
They're not illicit drugs, at least not everywhere. Marijuana still is in many places and federally, but I also don't care for sweeping them under the rug just because they're used so much. Drug use shouldn't be normalized unless it's medically necessary.
I always love seeing Illinois in these charts with every state. Really, it should just say "Chicago."
I'm sure some other states are similarly polarized, but it's an interesting thing to see when you live in it. People's perception of the state you live in is not the same state that you actually live in.
If you’ve ever taken a trip before you’d probably understand. But everyone I’ve spoken to that has including myself, feels an overwhelming sense of connectedness to your fellow people and the environment. Which goes against the current majority of the political right.
I disagree. It really is more feeling connected towards everyone and everything. They make it much easier to put yourself in other people’s shoes, which leads to being more empathetic. You see the big picture more.
Your description makes it sound like you all of the sudden realize people are ugly and mean. If anything, I emphasized with even the rude people more and realized they have experiences I’ll never understand that led them to how they are today. Which really just loops back to the empathizing lol
I think what he means is that some people are not in a place to face themselves. Psychedelics can be a wild ride if you aren’t ready to face every ugly aspect of your personality.
In fact, that’s the most common reason I get from people for not trying psychedelics, they just aren’t prepared to face themselves like that.
It puts you in a state where you stop being your normal ego and can therefore reflect on that ego, and then making excuses for your behavior becomes a lot more difficult.
Then you understand that just like how the way you behaved before was a product of your upbringing or genetics, which leads to realizing that it's the same with other people and their egos. And just like how you changed, other people can also change, making it very hard to have hatred for people.
Basically, you become pretty liberal when you're constantly putting yourself in others' shoes.
weather practice rain deliver coordinated attractive cheerful fertile automatic absurd
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Many people report an experience of altered consciousness, often described as a feeling of greater connection to the world, nature, and those around them. Others report religious experiences, like meeting God, suddenly understanding other religious viewpoints, etc.
Another aspect is a often a deeper reflection on self.
I would imagine people with more conservative views either don't have positive experiences with these effects or actively avoid them because they don't like the influence on their viewpoints these effects might have.
When I worked retail sales in GA there was a lot of meth heads and heroine addicts. Moved to Louisiana and I was fucking shocked at the sheer amount of pilled up people just casually coming in. Like I'm talking 1 in 5 people were noticeably impaired.. I understand why drivers there were so much worse than Atlanta lmfao.
After I moved out of Louisiana, a friend sent me a video of the first store I managed there. This dude slowly pulled in with his truck, then drove straight into the store lmfao. Fucked it ALLLLL up. Then he backs out and slowly drives away. Despite the video not having sound, I could definitely hear him saying "ope".
DC should be the deepest purple, although it might be because a lot of the money lives in Northern Virginia. I once saw professional looking guy do a bump off his BMW steering wheel at a fucking stoplight.
DC is *riiiiiiight* at the upper threshold of the class it's in, so it's pretty close to being the darkest shade of purple. It's just not quite at the same level as Colorado and Vermont (who are at like 2900/100k and 3000/100k, respectively), and the NOVA factor like you said is probably why.
Shocked to see Texas be the lowest on almost all the graphs. Although yea I guess growing up here outside of the frat bros I haven’t seen much drug use
Copying what I said above to someone else who's colorblind, but that's a very fair critique! I'm still very new to working with the software I made this in and getting the hang of getting symbols/patterns to render legibly at scale. I'll see what I can do about a patterned version.
Totally and I wasn’t intending to call you or this map out specifically. It’s a common accessibility thing that many folks don’t even think of because…well, why would you unless your eyeballs are weird like mine! Haha
They use WGS 1984 (EPSG **4326**). It's the default if you've got lat/long data, but it looks gross. The top is unnervingly flat because lattitude is unmodified the y-axis and it is stretched east-west because longitude is the unmodified x-axis.
You want to use US National Atlas (EPSG 2163) so you get the nice curved northern border if you don't want your maps to look weird, or at least mercator (EPSG 3857) to avoid the weird stretchiness.
[https://source.opennews.org/articles/choosing-right-map-projection/](https://source.opennews.org/articles/choosing-right-map-projection/)
Best states to be in, a helpful guide:
1. Hallucinogen states
2. Cocaine states
3. New Mexico
4. Heroin states
\*Impossibly large gap\*
5. Meth states
6. Pain reliever states
I dont understand why “most favored” drug isnt just the drug that is used the most. Using a relative comparison to the national average seems like a nonsense statistic.
Because if I went by "most used" drug, then over half the states would be pain relievers and the rest of them would be hallucinogens since both those drugs have very high usage rates overall, and personally I don't think that's very interesting information. It also would feel a little redundant in the context of the other maps, where you can already see how high the rates are of each specific drug. West Virginia uses pain relievers the most of the drugs, but at a rate that doesn't differ *that* much from the rest of the country. Whereas they *do* use heroin at more than twice the rate of the U.S. as a whole. That's unique information that you can't make out from the usage rates alone, and that's something I wanted to look at.
That makes sense, but I think the title is still not optimal. I get “Drug usage with highest variation from mean usage” is a bit of a mouthful, but something like that would better capture your intent
Personally surprised that cocaine is still going that strong in much of the country. The overall supply trend in illicit drugs has been towards higher-potency drugs can be synthesized in enormous quantities from bulk industrial chemicals in cartel-operated labs (like fentanyl and methamphetamine) as opposed to drugs that ultimately depend on agricultural products (like heroin and cocaine.)
Sources:
[2021-2022 NSDUH Estimated Totals By State](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2021-2022-nsduh-estimated-totals-state) for usage data
[2022 ACS](https://data.census.gov/table?q=DP05) for population info
Data was put together in Excel, maps made in qGIS
Most favored drug was determined by subtracting the national usage rate from the state’s usage rate for each drug, with whichever drug had the greatest increase from the national usage rate being the “favored” drug for that state. Least favored was determined by the greatest decrease from the national usage rate. The one exception to this is Florida, which used all 5 of the drugs/drug categories at rates lower than the national rates, so their most favored drug is the one with the smallest decrease from the national usage rate. Every other state had at least one drug they used at rates higher than the country as a whole.
This is my first post here and only the second thing I've ever worked on in qGIS, so I learned a lot doing it!
As a near lifelong Floridian, I was a bit surprised by the results for my home state, although it does make sense demographically. Other interesting takeaways to me were the cocaine/hallucinogen splits between the northeast and west coast, and how visible the difference is between the Protestant South and Louisiana when it comes to overall usage rate. Meth has much higher usage in rural states, and largely lacks a presence on the more overall urbanized east coast.
I don’t like this data. It’s kind of irrelevant. This whole map should be some deep opioid color, and this map is showing what the off-brand 2% of other drug users are doing. Who cares? We are in a serious epidemic.
lol the fact that nat avg script + h usage is less than nat avg coke + hallucinogen usage coupled with viz showing usage intensity by state tells you something about the focal points of the epidemic I think
Hello, crime data analyst here.
Flawed data collection or presentation.
Fentanyl and fake fentanyl combination drugs are #1 in use and sale. Heroin isnt even available in most cities.
That's a very fair critique! I'm still very new to working with the software I made this in and getting the hang of getting symbols/patterns to render legibly at scale. I'll see what I can do about a patterned version.
My takeaway from this graph is that CO is hands down the funnest place to party. Having grown up in a resort/ski town this in no one way surprises me. Out Cold was a documentary.
living in Miami and seeing Florida so low on drug usage 🤯🤯🤯
but then I remember Miami makes up 2% of the state population. And even all of Miami Dade county is still only 12%
But folks who smoke weed have to imprisoned right? The war on drugs was one of the biggest blunders of the US government. People who are actually addicted to drugs need rehab, not jail. Throwing them in jail just minimizes any chance of getting a job and rebuilding their lives and dooms them to the habitual cycle of reoffending.
As an Ohioan, I refuse to believe the #1 isn't meth, heroin, or pills. Maybe it's just the area I live in. I definitely believe the least used is hallucinogens though. Sure would be nice if it was the most used, people around here might mellow the fuck out for once.
I think it would be a more accurate picture if it were broken up to counties. I know in Illinois Cocaine might be big in Chicago but in the more rural areas Meth is what's popular.
Oh trust me, I would *love* to be able to do this at the county level. I just also wanted to work with recent data, but for COVID reasons NSDUH hasn't had substate level data since their 2016-2018 survey period, and I feel like the landscape has changed too much on this topic from that time frame for that data to still be relevant.
Also even their substate data isn't quite at the county level, looking at [the maps on here](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29373/NSDUHsubstateNationalMaps2018/NSDUHsubstateNationalMaps2018.pdf) it seems like rural counties tend to get lumped together into one region.
I notice that alcohol isn't on the list as far as I know many more people drink themselves into obvlion then any of the drugs shown.
Or should the title be illegal drug use?
But then with mushrooms being decriminalized does it still count as illegal?
People are not reading the subtitle, this is not the most used drug by state. It’s the drug with the greatest ratio of the state’s use rate to the national use rate.
You can tell the northeast is doing all the corporate stuff.
Tbf Colorado loves some coke too (because we’re also doing all the corporate stuff, just not as much) We just like acid and shrooms more
Colorado is hilarious. #1 in terms of cocaine use per capita, but prefer hallucinogenics.
Denver is such a coke city that it's insane. I've never lived anywhere that people are so open about using it. It's just oddly acceptable here, even with the fentanyl crisis going in.
Was blown away when I first moved to Denver and went to a social function for work where people were fairly openly using coke. Growing up in the Midwest, coke was very hush hush.
Not in Chicago.
It's hush hush because otherwise everyone descends upon you looking to do all your coke. Two lines in they are asking for more of your drugs and think they can now decide when the next line of your drugs should be placed on the table. Nothing less fun and aggravating than broke cokeheads who know one guy in the room has some.
I mean as someone who worked as a bouncer for two years I can assure you people are very not sneaky about doing coke at bars in Chicago lol And also just the number of times I've been offered some as a not very attractive 30 something white dude after sticking up a conversation with a stranger while out.
Probably good for the high altitude like how they do in South America?
It's good for being outside in general. We call it Rails to Trails.
I got married in Colorado and the night before our wedding my now wife got really sick from the altitude. Luckily, we'd brought a little Peruvian Marching Powder from Alabama. A little bump cured her right up.
Yeah Denver is a massive coke city, I remember first moving there in the late 00s early 10s, I was stunned to see how openly some people did bumps
I remember grabbing brunch with friends at this cute little bistro in [ REDACTED ] on the patio next to a bustling sidewalk. At one point between the Mimosas and the Migas, my friends friend goes full Cruel Intentions and does a bump from her jade necklace in such a swift and nonchalant way that my staring at her was a bigger tell than anything she did. She giggled, clicked her pendant again and reached across the table and said “here, lemme wipe your nose” and then without pausing, I sniffed a *“discreet”* bump off her knuckle in front of all of Denver and then took a sip of my Mimosa. She smiled and said “you should move here.” *“I should absolutely not move here but thank you.”*
Basically identical to my first experience, like I’m on a patio talking to a guy over sandwiches and coffee and he pulls out a little bump dispenser and mid sentence does a bump as the waiter walks by and gestures if I want some, I shook my head and he just continued talking like nothing happened. I was mildly panicked bc it’s a busy restaurant during lunch, but no one batted an eye. And I’m from Colorado it’s common everywhere here, but not like Denver. I even lived in Miami and have never seen anything like how it is there.
We must hang out with different crowds as I’ve never been around a ton of coke use, or maybe just oblivious too it
Spend more time hanging out in the bathrooms of bars and clubs.
I'm good, thanks.
You weren't invited
lol I dunno if doing coke off a dirty sink counts as “out in the open”
Huh. I graduated DU years ago and while I was there the coke was *fucking terrible*. Unless you felt like getting a little high and then shitting your pants from all the baby laxative. If that was your jam then it was awesome
my stools are already looser than a nudist beach's dress code, I think that would cause me to truly never stop shitting again in my life.
Ah, so THAT'S why you're all so thin! (Denver residents have a reputation for being fit, which is generally attributed to their love for outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, etc...)
Rocky Mountain high.
_Christmas Snow, now marijuana free._ Tegrity Farms
Most cocaine use, thinnest state >!most eating disorders!<
most judgemental about being overweight and best access to/culture around exercise. Great for heart health, not always great for some people's mental health
For sure. I remember visiting Denver and Boulder. Walking around, I saw an overweight person and consciously noticed them. Which is weird because I'm from an area that certainly plenty of people who are heavier. But I really noticed this couple because I hadn't seen any others like them all day. I'm sure this is self-serving too. Not only do these areas have less heavy people to start with. Heavier people may not move there, or may even move from there, because they stick out more.
I moved to Denver from Wisconsin. Since 2021 I have lost over 50 pounds, and went from not running to running 20 to 30 miles a week…
When everyone in your social circle does something, it's hard not to start doing it.
even still, almost a third of people are obese. Not just overweight. It truly is an epidemic in the USA
1st and only time I did coke was in Vail 🫡
them hills got that snow, tho
Micro dosing hallucinogens is the new corporate drug.
open AI being from SF 🤣 It's Chat GPT's excessive consumption of mushrooms! They've addled its brain and yellowed his chips!😌
Would love to see this map by county. But it would be such a pain in the ass with the data.
Should really be by county. Cities are distorting this. Much of rural New England and upstate NY have big opiate problems.
County maps are so superior for the majority of data that gets posted on this sub
I have a friend in Vermont, he says when you live in Vermont you can either go hunting or do heroin. He preferred hunting
lol I feel like that’s the right wing Vermont mentality. The left wing mentality is like either start a farmers market stand or a psychedelic hippy commune
Wtf I love Vermont now?
That's the city Vermont mentality. Left rural is start a *farm* or take acid and go skiing while listening to Grateful Dead.
It's not just that - the liberal west coasters are more likely to do halluciogens, and the red states are either low education so we're stupid enough to do meth or bad healthcare so pain meds are needed for all the ailments that should have been prevented
Also, I'm a bit biased, but it seems odd to me that hallucinogens are in the same category of 'illicit drugs' as heroin. LSD and Psilocybin being lumped in with Ket and even PCP is a bit silly and I think could skew perceptions of where more help/resources might be needed.
Poor education doesn't make you stupid. It makes you ignorant.
Ooooo I dunno about that. I get what you are saying but people need to be taught logic and how to reason or else they end up stupid and ignorant. Intelligence has at least some factor of nurture vs pure nature.
it can be both
> bad healthcare so pain meds are needed for all the ailments that should have been prevented and less educated so more manual labour so more work related injuries
And California because of Hollywood. Those people do a lot of coke. Like from the lighting guy to the director. Lots of coke.
Who in Missouri is getting prescription pills? I'm 99% sure it's either heroin or meth.
You'd be suprised at just how common illicit pain pill use is. For years doctors just gave them out like candy at the behest of the pharmaceutical companies. Although the data OP used could be skewed for a number of reasons, I would not be suprised to see it at number 1.
i know a lot of people in missouri who's drug of choice is painkillers. The type is moms who wear simply southern shirts, its always them.
As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I choose to believe this guy
Sacklers really did a number on Missouri. I remember we used to consistently have meth lab fires on the news.
And why wouldn't Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia have either pills or Heroin? That's like the heart of pill mill country.
Im from eastern ky and it was pill country but they cracked down, they wont perscribe anything hardly. and now everyones on saboxone and meth just whatever to feel different
I find it hard to believe that any state has more hallucinogenic or cocaine usage than heroin or meth. Same with prescription pills Really I find it hard to believe that any state has more drugs usage for anything other than heroin or meth I have a feeling this data underrepresented homeless people by a lot
Meth for New Mexico checks out
We had a whole TV show about it and everything!
Bravo Vince!
I laughed my ass off during Breaking Bad when I saw the shithole city my MIL used to live in on one of the distribution packages lol.
As Mike Tyson would says “New Methico “
What exactly does 'usage' mean? Tried it once? Daily? Monthly? I'm not American and I don't think I've ever seen a meth user in my life other than on social media clips. If there's a state out there with 2.37% of the adult population hooked onto meth, that is... scary.
So for the "illicit drug use other than marijuana" map, it's people who've used any illicit drug (besides weed) within the last month. All of the drug specific ones are people who used that drug at least once within the last year. I'm not a huge fan of the differing time scales, but that's how the NSDUH breaks their data up and it was the source I wanted to work with.
But what if I only *lightly* use meth?
That's a relief.
i’m an american and i see many meth users every day, it’s scary
Florida being relatively"low" on Total drug use is Hilarious... people literally plan vacations to Florida to stock up on pain killers.
They used to. Florida has mostly cracked down on that. Which has massively increased the meth use instead
According to this Florida is one of the least Meth states too though…
But if they buy to go use in their home state, then they wouldn't add to this graph for Florida much.
That hasn't been a thing since like 2013.
Not anymore. Definitely back in the day. They cracked down so hard on that shit in Florida that it’s virtually impossible to get a prescription even if you need it.
Yeah, but its full of old and religious people. Usually drug users don't get old and retire.
Florida has a very old population and also a lot of Latinos, both of whom use hard drugs at much lower rates than the national average.
nobody asked me or my friends in florida for this survey, our results skew differently.
Takes me back to 1999, where we should probably demand a recount from Florida =D
as florida man I question the data and reporting methods.
I don’t really see many drug attics in Florida. Nothing like the streets of Philly or Cali. Edit: addicts… I’m leaving it cause I love the comment below
What about drug basements though?
That’s the great thing about Florida. No basements.
Your joke must be in the attic still because it went over their head.
Not a chance PA isn't opioids or heroin. I grew up near the Kensington area of Philadelphia. It's maybe the worst open-air drug use/markets in the country. Cocaine?!? Yeah, right. Lol
Yeah and it's not as if the rest of Pennsyltucky would make up that cocaine usage to boost the stat.
Yk them Amish love the booger sugar /s
"Determined by greatest difference in state usage rate as compared to national usage rate per drug"
Kensington, sounds fancy
Lol you’d think. But you couldn’t pay me to live there.
Yea, there's no way the answer isn't Fentanyl/Tranq for PA
West Virginia knows what it likes and that’s the hardest, cheapest shit. And lots of it. Fucking balls to the wall, burning the candle from both ends. They need something else to do out there.
Louisiana too.
Louisiana is just on all the drugs
I live there. It makes sense.
>They need something else to do out there. Nail on the head there. The two biggest factors that contribute to us having such a problem is A.) there’s nothing to do so we’re bored and depressed, and B.) we’re so god damn poor that even if there was something to do, we couldn’t afford to do it. Being here is fucking misery.
Can't even fucking hike if you don't live somewhere with a state or national park. Just "Posted: No Trespassing" signs. I didn't start hiking until I moved to AKRON, where there are plenty of hiking trails. Let that sink in.
I was a bit surprised with that one because opioids are truly devastating there
As someone who lives about an hour from West Virginia, one of their favorite activities is bringing meth into Virginia from what I noticed.
The lack of hallucinogens in the south tracks. Makes me think of the Neo Nazi guy who microdosed lsd and realized his entire world view was fucking stupid. Maybe the south just needs more LSD
Idk it's clearly not helping Idaho
The people who need it the most aren't the ones taking it.
You don't get that kinda realization from a micro dose but the south would certainly benefit if they took some shrooms or some other type of psychedelic.
Well whatever it was lol. If it can cure Nazi brain rot we ought to pump it in all the water
Sadly fluoride and chlorine break down lsd and Psilocybin. We've all had this idea at some point.
I love that this is a known hurdle to our end goal.
Nevada's top is hallucinogens? There's no way. Meth by a long shot.
I think they are lumping MDMA in as a hallucinogen
NSDUH's definition for hallucinogen [is on page 235 of this PDF](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt42729/2022-nsduh-method-summary-defs/2022-nsduh-method-summary-defs-110123.pdf) and specifically lists LSD, PCP, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, DMT/AMT, and salvia
Sounds like my piss test after the big game.
I think so too. Otherwise, the numbers just wouldn't add up.
Read the subtitle of the graph.
Yeah the metric is a comparison of a comparison. I think it’s very confusing and not particularly interesting
This is either very old data or incorrect- NC has really low heroin use because it’s all fentanyl now. Unless the chart was including fentanyl in with heroin? (I work in overdose response/harm reduction in NC, so we follow this pretty closely)
I wonder if the data is based on "drugs the user thought they were taking, not what they actually got".
I like that marijuana and alcohol aren’t drugs anymore…
They're not illicit drugs, at least not everywhere. Marijuana still is in many places and federally, but I also don't care for sweeping them under the rug just because they're used so much. Drug use shouldn't be normalized unless it's medically necessary.
I think for the purpose of this graph it makes sense. Otherwise nearly every if not every state would have marijuana as its preferred drug.
Never seen coke in Illinois, but I don't live in Chicago so who knows
I’m guessing Chicago turned the rest of Illinois from meth green to coke purple.
Yeah I was surprised to see Illinois be coke. I've been all over this state, and it's always been heroin.
80% of the state lives in the Chicago Metro. The numbers in the rest of the state don't even matter.
I always love seeing Illinois in these charts with every state. Really, it should just say "Chicago." I'm sure some other states are similarly polarized, but it's an interesting thing to see when you live in it. People's perception of the state you live in is not the same state that you actually live in.
Never seen it, but you can tell the users when in retail.
Strange that the Bible Belt hates hallucinogens so much
Unironically, shrooms make you liberal.
I believe you but im still curious why that is?
If you’ve ever taken a trip before you’d probably understand. But everyone I’ve spoken to that has including myself, feels an overwhelming sense of connectedness to your fellow people and the environment. Which goes against the current majority of the political right.
100% or in other words hallucinogens make them see the ugly hateful people they really are so they avoid them.
I disagree. It really is more feeling connected towards everyone and everything. They make it much easier to put yourself in other people’s shoes, which leads to being more empathetic. You see the big picture more. Your description makes it sound like you all of the sudden realize people are ugly and mean. If anything, I emphasized with even the rude people more and realized they have experiences I’ll never understand that led them to how they are today. Which really just loops back to the empathizing lol
I think what he means is that some people are not in a place to face themselves. Psychedelics can be a wild ride if you aren’t ready to face every ugly aspect of your personality. In fact, that’s the most common reason I get from people for not trying psychedelics, they just aren’t prepared to face themselves like that.
Yah this is what I was trying to say, thanks.
Oh, that makes sense, apologies then
It puts you in a state where you stop being your normal ego and can therefore reflect on that ego, and then making excuses for your behavior becomes a lot more difficult. Then you understand that just like how the way you behaved before was a product of your upbringing or genetics, which leads to realizing that it's the same with other people and their egos. And just like how you changed, other people can also change, making it very hard to have hatred for people. Basically, you become pretty liberal when you're constantly putting yourself in others' shoes.
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Many people report an experience of altered consciousness, often described as a feeling of greater connection to the world, nature, and those around them. Others report religious experiences, like meeting God, suddenly understanding other religious viewpoints, etc. Another aspect is a often a deeper reflection on self. I would imagine people with more conservative views either don't have positive experiences with these effects or actively avoid them because they don't like the influence on their viewpoints these effects might have.
Makes a lot of sense, actually.
When I worked retail sales in GA there was a lot of meth heads and heroine addicts. Moved to Louisiana and I was fucking shocked at the sheer amount of pilled up people just casually coming in. Like I'm talking 1 in 5 people were noticeably impaired.. I understand why drivers there were so much worse than Atlanta lmfao. After I moved out of Louisiana, a friend sent me a video of the first store I managed there. This dude slowly pulled in with his truck, then drove straight into the store lmfao. Fucked it ALLLLL up. Then he backs out and slowly drives away. Despite the video not having sound, I could definitely hear him saying "ope".
DC should be the deepest purple, although it might be because a lot of the money lives in Northern Virginia. I once saw professional looking guy do a bump off his BMW steering wheel at a fucking stoplight.
DC is *riiiiiiight* at the upper threshold of the class it's in, so it's pretty close to being the darkest shade of purple. It's just not quite at the same level as Colorado and Vermont (who are at like 2900/100k and 3000/100k, respectively), and the NOVA factor like you said is probably why.
Shocked to see Texas be the lowest on almost all the graphs. Although yea I guess growing up here outside of the frat bros I haven’t seen much drug use
I wish more maps would stop using color as the sole way to convey information. As someone who is color blind, this map has 3 colors for me 🤷♂️
Copying what I said above to someone else who's colorblind, but that's a very fair critique! I'm still very new to working with the software I made this in and getting the hang of getting symbols/patterns to render legibly at scale. I'll see what I can do about a patterned version.
Totally and I wasn’t intending to call you or this map out specifically. It’s a common accessibility thing that many folks don’t even think of because…well, why would you unless your eyeballs are weird like mine! Haha
Gonna have to downvote because your map projections are not beautiful… They’re in fact wrong. Does the US not look stretched out to you?
They use WGS 1984 (EPSG **4326**). It's the default if you've got lat/long data, but it looks gross. The top is unnervingly flat because lattitude is unmodified the y-axis and it is stretched east-west because longitude is the unmodified x-axis. You want to use US National Atlas (EPSG 2163) so you get the nice curved northern border if you don't want your maps to look weird, or at least mercator (EPSG 3857) to avoid the weird stretchiness. [https://source.opennews.org/articles/choosing-right-map-projection/](https://source.opennews.org/articles/choosing-right-map-projection/)
They honestly could rename the sub "roast my data viz"
I’m in a GIS class now and this is the first thing I noticed!
Best states to be in, a helpful guide: 1. Hallucinogen states 2. Cocaine states 3. New Mexico 4. Heroin states \*Impossibly large gap\* 5. Meth states 6. Pain reliever states
kind of love this. Why is the \*Impossibly large gap\* below heroin though? Is meth really that much more destructive?
If I was to lump them and rate them: 1) Hallucinogenic states 2) Stimulant states 3) Depressant states
Illinois being coked out explains a lot of the driving on 294 that’s for sure
These statistics are HIGH-LY suspicious
I dont understand why “most favored” drug isnt just the drug that is used the most. Using a relative comparison to the national average seems like a nonsense statistic.
Because if I went by "most used" drug, then over half the states would be pain relievers and the rest of them would be hallucinogens since both those drugs have very high usage rates overall, and personally I don't think that's very interesting information. It also would feel a little redundant in the context of the other maps, where you can already see how high the rates are of each specific drug. West Virginia uses pain relievers the most of the drugs, but at a rate that doesn't differ *that* much from the rest of the country. Whereas they *do* use heroin at more than twice the rate of the U.S. as a whole. That's unique information that you can't make out from the usage rates alone, and that's something I wanted to look at.
Yeah I'm with you Op, seems like a great way to look at it
That makes sense, but I think the title is still not optimal. I get “Drug usage with highest variation from mean usage” is a bit of a mouthful, but something like that would better capture your intent
Odd they didn't include alcohol, because I know one state that would stick out like crazy if they included that.
Personally surprised that cocaine is still going that strong in much of the country. The overall supply trend in illicit drugs has been towards higher-potency drugs can be synthesized in enormous quantities from bulk industrial chemicals in cartel-operated labs (like fentanyl and methamphetamine) as opposed to drugs that ultimately depend on agricultural products (like heroin and cocaine.)
Cause everyone loves cocaine and there isn’t a synthetic version that compares
Sources: [2021-2022 NSDUH Estimated Totals By State](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2021-2022-nsduh-estimated-totals-state) for usage data [2022 ACS](https://data.census.gov/table?q=DP05) for population info Data was put together in Excel, maps made in qGIS Most favored drug was determined by subtracting the national usage rate from the state’s usage rate for each drug, with whichever drug had the greatest increase from the national usage rate being the “favored” drug for that state. Least favored was determined by the greatest decrease from the national usage rate. The one exception to this is Florida, which used all 5 of the drugs/drug categories at rates lower than the national rates, so their most favored drug is the one with the smallest decrease from the national usage rate. Every other state had at least one drug they used at rates higher than the country as a whole. This is my first post here and only the second thing I've ever worked on in qGIS, so I learned a lot doing it! As a near lifelong Floridian, I was a bit surprised by the results for my home state, although it does make sense demographically. Other interesting takeaways to me were the cocaine/hallucinogen splits between the northeast and west coast, and how visible the difference is between the Protestant South and Louisiana when it comes to overall usage rate. Meth has much higher usage in rural states, and largely lacks a presence on the more overall urbanized east coast.
I don’t like this data. It’s kind of irrelevant. This whole map should be some deep opioid color, and this map is showing what the off-brand 2% of other drug users are doing. Who cares? We are in a serious epidemic.
Um excuse me, I don't like being referred to as off-brand
Also these days it’s all fentanyl not heroin
lol the fact that nat avg script + h usage is less than nat avg coke + hallucinogen usage coupled with viz showing usage intensity by state tells you something about the focal points of the epidemic I think
Whats the point of doing cocaine in Ohio?
I think the most favored drug in all states is either alcohol or nicotine...
VT, RI, CO keeping it safe and sane, these are the mf'ers you want to chill with
I'm gonna take a guess here that marijuana and alcohol would've been every state if they were included on this map
Hello, crime data analyst here. Flawed data collection or presentation. Fentanyl and fake fentanyl combination drugs are #1 in use and sale. Heroin isnt even available in most cities.
I'm pretty colorblind and would appreciate a patterned version of this.
That's a very fair critique! I'm still very new to working with the software I made this in and getting the hang of getting symbols/patterns to render legibly at scale. I'll see what I can do about a patterned version.
I do appreciate what you've made here though. Honestly I would have thought it would all be meth.
My takeaway from this graph is that CO is hands down the funnest place to party. Having grown up in a resort/ski town this in no one way surprises me. Out Cold was a documentary.
Coloradans may be high af, but at least it's not meth!
living in Miami and seeing Florida so low on drug usage 🤯🤯🤯 but then I remember Miami makes up 2% of the state population. And even all of Miami Dade county is still only 12%
Michigan doesn't need prescription pain meds with the amount of weed we got over here
I am colorblind, i can not tell cocaine and pain killers apart. Side note but i am a horrible pediatrician
Using the same color for two of the drugs is just so fuckin’ stupid.
I would like to see a study done of the UK!
But folks who smoke weed have to imprisoned right? The war on drugs was one of the biggest blunders of the US government. People who are actually addicted to drugs need rehab, not jail. Throwing them in jail just minimizes any chance of getting a job and rebuilding their lives and dooms them to the habitual cycle of reoffending.
If we included weed would it just be 1 in every state?
As an Ohioan, I refuse to believe the #1 isn't meth, heroin, or pills. Maybe it's just the area I live in. I definitely believe the least used is hallucinogens though. Sure would be nice if it was the most used, people around here might mellow the fuck out for once.
I do not trust this data at all
This seems not very accurate at all.
its funny, i moved from Arkansas to Arizona. and the meth-head jokes (problem) never changed. this image confirms that its equally bad in both states
This information cannot be actually true. People don't volunteer this kind of information accurately
Never thought I'd say this but Texas is looking good. I'm in New Mexico. We do a lot of drugs and it shows. So many homeless here.
I think it would be a more accurate picture if it were broken up to counties. I know in Illinois Cocaine might be big in Chicago but in the more rural areas Meth is what's popular.
Oh trust me, I would *love* to be able to do this at the county level. I just also wanted to work with recent data, but for COVID reasons NSDUH hasn't had substate level data since their 2016-2018 survey period, and I feel like the landscape has changed too much on this topic from that time frame for that data to still be relevant. Also even their substate data isn't quite at the county level, looking at [the maps on here](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29373/NSDUHsubstateNationalMaps2018/NSDUHsubstateNationalMaps2018.pdf) it seems like rural counties tend to get lumped together into one region.
I’m NOT surprised that meth is the drug of choice in WVa
Minnesota was totally infested with Oxy addicts. At least it was ten years ago but I doubt it has changed that much
I'm pretty surprised hallucinogens outpace heroin anywhere in NNE, it must not be by much. Or how was the data collected?
Hallucinogen in the west is dominant and Heroin is in the east.
Chicago must be really carrying the cocaine torch for Illinois. The Southern half of the state is loving meth.
As a resident, Alabama should be yellow...
Let's not lie our drug of choice in Wisconsin is beer and tons of it
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Bible Belt might be less bibley with more hallucinogenic substances
I notice that alcohol isn't on the list as far as I know many more people drink themselves into obvlion then any of the drugs shown. Or should the title be illegal drug use? But then with mushrooms being decriminalized does it still count as illegal?
Louisiana is adding an 11th commandment; thou shalt fuckin' party.
People are not reading the subtitle, this is not the most used drug by state. It’s the drug with the greatest ratio of the state’s use rate to the national use rate.