These rumors of cocaine abuse, at least among traders and asset managers, were mostly exaggerated. (Members of the sales force, especially the salesmen responsible for taking clients out to lap-dancing bars till the wee hours of the morning, may have been another matter.) As for Nesse, his comments received some humorous coverage in the media, and when he spoke at a conference organized by the New York Academy of Sciences a year later he seemed to regret making them.
