Cocaine no longer the drug of choice on Wall Street?

New research from Sterling Infosystems Inc suggests that the drug of choice amongst Wall Street professionals has changed. There has been an apparent shift from cocaine use to Marijuana. According to drug testing firm, Sterling, (who test around 270 different Wall Street financial firms) positive tests for cocaine amongst employees has decreased by 9%.

Marijuana is now particularly prevalent amongst failed tests, as there has been a leap from 64% to 80% between 2007 and 2009. The finance industry is an ostensibly “cleaner” industry with only 2% failed drugs tests, compared to the 4.1% of failed tests amongst those in the retail industry.

These figures may be slightly distorted by the nature in which these particular tests are conducted. For instance real estate investment trust companies have the highest number of failed tests. This could be a result of the number of random tests carried out within the industry. Drug tests in other industries tend to be carried out amongst newly hired staff, those who know they are likely to be tested, thus potentially distorting the reality of drug use in certain industries.

Amphetamine use seems to be gaining popularity, appearing in 10% of Sterling’s positive tests this year, in comparison to 2007 figures of just 3%. According to the Federal Health Department cocaine and marijuana use has remained static since 2002. However New York remains the capital of illicit drug use in the United States.   

9.6% of Manhattan residents said they had used marijuana in the previous year, compared with 6% of people across the country and 5% of the island’s residents had claimed to used cocaine in the previous month, compared with 2.3% nationally.

Brad Lamm, president of New York-based Intervention Specialists, has claimed to have seen a surge in substance use on Wall Street – stating “crack and coke” are particularly prevalent.

“The titans of Wall Street normalize crazy behavior all the time,” he says. “If somebody’s delivering and showing up and doing the work, they almost have to catch on fire for someone to sound the alarm.”