Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa has this theory, which he calls the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. Here's how it goes: intelligence evolved as a way to deal with "evolutionary novelties"--to help humans respond to things in their environment to which they were, as a species, unaccustomed. Thus, smart people are more likely to deal with new things and try them. Those new things seem to include drugs.
Why? Because, as Kanazawa explains, while "the use of opium dates back to about 5,000 years ago ... Other psychoactive drugs are 'chemical' (pharmacological); they require modern chemistry to manufacture." Psychoactive drugs, therefore, are evolutionarily pretty new to humans. Which means that smart people, according to the theory, will be more likely to take psychoactive drugs. That's true even if the drugs are bad for them: "[the Hypothesis] does not predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in healthy and beneficial behavior, only that they are more likely to engage in evolutionarily novel behavior."
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/feat...eople-Do-More-Drugs-Because-of-Evolution-2425
Why? Because, as Kanazawa explains, while "the use of opium dates back to about 5,000 years ago ... Other psychoactive drugs are 'chemical' (pharmacological); they require modern chemistry to manufacture." Psychoactive drugs, therefore, are evolutionarily pretty new to humans. Which means that smart people, according to the theory, will be more likely to take psychoactive drugs. That's true even if the drugs are bad for them: "[the Hypothesis] does not predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in healthy and beneficial behavior, only that they are more likely to engage in evolutionarily novel behavior."
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/feat...eople-Do-More-Drugs-Because-of-Evolution-2425
