A lot of my friend's parents smoke, and I live in an upper-middle class suburb. I go to college at the University of Cincinnati, and several of my professors smoke. I'm a productive person, and still in college...I'm successful in life so far, and I smoke a lot. An old employer of mine said, when he found out I smoked, it changed his opinion of marijuana and users completely (he used to think weed killed brain cells and made people apathetic/irresponsible).

Chances are, the people you know with shitty lives smoked because their lives are shitty. Their lives aren't shitty because they smoke.