The Nation - News from Aug. 31, 1987

Drug addiction is rising among poor Americans who have few incentives to give up their dependencies, experts said in a published report. The poor are likely to keep suffering from cocaine, heroin and the drug-related disease AIDS while middle-class America pulls itself from a 20-year fascination with drugs, experts said in the New York Times. Government statistics support that perspective, the paper said. “In the inner city, the factors that would counterbalance drug use--family, employment, status within the community--often are not there,” said Dr. David Musto, a Yale professor.