"What you typically find is that people with high IQs are less likely to smoke , more likely to be active and to have a good diet," says White, noting that they are also likely to have high socioeconomic status. People in this group tend to make healthy choices, based both on health information and their own experience.
socioeconomic status 社会经济地位;社会经济状况
This group isn't likely to see occasional drug use as particularly harmful, White says, both because there is little data to suggest great risk of harm from such use and because evidence of harm is rare among their peers. "With smoking, the evidence is overwhelming," says White, "whereas when you look at things like cannabis use, since they are more likely to associate with people who are similar to them, they are likely to see that smoking cannabis relatively infrequently doesn't have huge impact."
whereas conj. (用以比较或对比两个事实)但是，然而，尽管
In contrast, drug users with less education and wealth are more likely to be exposed to negative consequences of drug use. This is due in part to the fact that money itself can buy protection against the types of criminal involvement and disease that can affect poor drug users.
be exposed to 曝光;面临;遭受
"The likely mechanism is openness to experience," White concludes, "and, I think, it's also this idea of having an educated view of risk as well." (Of course, American views about what consists of an "educated" perspective on drug risks have often clashed with those of the more relaxed position typically taken in Europe.)
The study didn't look at the risk of addiction among those with high IQs because it wasn't able to measure the frequency of drug use in participants. However, earlier research has found a connection between high IQ and greater risk of alcohol abuse and dependence.
That could potentially be linked to the boredom and social isolation experienced by many gifted children, the authors note. But since a link between IQ and drug use remains independent of psychological distress, that can't be all that's going on. "It rules out the argument that the only reason people take illegal drugs is to self medicate," says White.
boredom n. 1.[U]厌烦，厌倦 2.[C]令人厌烦的事物
rule out 排除;取消;划去
Question time:
1. What might be the factors that result in smarter kids' trying drugs?
2. Why drug users with less education and wealth are more likely to be exposed to negative consequences of drug use?
【参考答案】
1. People with high IQs are more likely to score high on personality scales of openness to experience. They may be more willing to experiment and seek out novel experiences. Another factor could be that the messages used to attempt to deter teens from drug use weren't exactly known for the subtlety of their reasoning, so they may not have targeted the smarter group well.
2. This is due in part to the fact that money itself can buy protection against the types of criminal involvement and disease that can affect poor drug users.
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