system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are some hard drugs more harshly stigmatized in society than others?

For example: people make lighthearted jokes about coke and, from what I've seen, are much more willing to talk about it openly - even glorify it - but heroin is treated like a very dark, serious topic. Or how coke is fine, but crack is just for addicts sleeping in abandoned warehouses.

I understand different drugs have different side effects, but all hard drugs have potentially life-ruining consequences, right? So why is our culture selective about some hard drugs being okay, and some not?
gpt
Social class. When a drug is associated with the poor, like crack and heroin, then society places a stigma to it. When a drug is associated with the rich/well off/middle class not so much, cannabis and cocaine come to mind.

With cannabis it's interesting. It was far more demonized in the past when it was associated with the "wrong" social classes. Now that it's mostly middle class college students not so much.

I put "wrong" in scare quotes because it's not always about rich and poor. It can be about any marginalized segment of society. Most of the time it's the poor, but it can be based on race or ethnicity.