If you correct that to "folks haven't anything easier to do", then I'd agree with you. There are better things to do, they just take a bit of hard work, getting up in the morning, not staying out late at night, being cordial to customers, etc...the adult things. But to say that people are criminals because there are not other opportunities for them is just not believable.
To say they just don't have anything better to do (steingar's words) is kind of misstating it but I know what he means. The way you put it in your last sentence is more accurate, they do it because there are not other opportunities. I'm talking about the poverty stricken inner city folks. At its most basic, people do what is most rational for their particular circumstance. The deeply disenfranchised may actually, literally, have NO other opportunity. Heck if I had zero job prospects, zero chance of a college education, had a low IQ from whatever drug my welfare mom did when I was a fetus, and whatever poor nutrition I was raised on, and lived with cockroaches, I might escape into drug using and drug pushing too.
I used to believe that inner city blacks were completely at fault for their own circumstance. Personal accountability and all that. And I still believe in personal accountability as a guiding principle, but a person can be accountable for only what is within the limit of their potential, their environment and their circumstance. The things that got them trapped in the ghetto in the first place are forces beyond their control and so strong only those endowed with unusual intelligence and drive, plus no small amount of luck, escape. For the rest, at this point, many generations deep in that culture and lifestyle, it becomes almost a virtual impossibility to be anything different. THIS is the core problem that the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to express, although they are deeply stupid, criminal, misguided and evil. The police are NOT the problem and not the enemy but they're too stupid to figure it all out.
For example, one major reason there are no jobs is that manufacturing vanished from the cities. So what about entrepreneurs and small business? Desegregation allowed the smarter, more ambitious blacks (the ones who started small businesses and the professionals, the doctor, lawyers and teachers) to move away. It was a good thing for them, but a bad thing for those left behind, who no longer could benefit from the jobs that the ambitious blacks provided when they were confined to black areas of town AND from the stabilizing influence of those "higher quality" individuals in a neighborhood. Segregation is evil and it was right to end it but this was one of the unintended consequences. No, railing against the police, who more than anything protect blacks against crime committed by blacks against their own selves is to COMPLETELY miss the point. They should be railing against our trade policies that killed industry in the U.S., over regulation that has strangled small business, welfare and housing programs that have ruined the family and created generations of fatherless kids, raised without male discipline (who then turn to gang leaders as their alpha male role models), and last but not least, the insane "War on Drugs", a dismal failure on every front and possibly THE most damaging factor in all this mess, sending most of the males to prison before they have any chance at becoming a decent MAN.
So that's the black inner cities. What about everybody else? In addition to the SAD making brains unhappy, I believe our culture has collectively become enablers. In this I completely agree with you. It's taking the easy way out to just do drugs instead of working for your next meal. Assuming there IS a job out there for you, if it's not a fun job, and your parents let you live in the basement rent free, then why flip burgers? I think this pretty much defines the typical white middle class drug addict (excluding elderly disabled "accidental" addicts).
As for the rich Charlie Sheen types, drug addiction among celebrities is pandemic. What on earth makes people believe being rich and famous equates to being happy?? Those people are MISERABLE. Ever put yourself in their shoes? Being a famous musician or actor has got to be one of the most high pressure jobs possible, living under a microscope with the whole world judging you. Throw in any kind of complication such as being bipolar or having been abused as a child, and then being steeped in the partying scene and expected to be "on" for people all the time would make it very difficult to "just say no".
So it IS believable some people do it because there are just no opportunities, but others do it because the opportunities just aren't good enough to be worth it, and those I think are being enabled. If you have a job that is very meaningful and rewarding, you're less likely to do drugs but if you get your engineering degree and can't find a job other than flipping burgers, and someone enables you by paying your rent and groceries, you escape worrying about your dismal career prospects by doing drugs.
A lot of it is the work ethic is no longer being transmitted to the younger generations. Our whole culture is too soft on them, bubble wrapping them and making them expect robots and technology to do all the labor and all their thinking for them. So I agree with you that the lack of work ethic is also a big contributing factor.
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