Their use of any kind of drug snowballs, almost overnight, into freebasing or heroin injection. Remarkably, all of this happens quicker than you can blink an eye, and the women are, at least temporarily, lost in the morass of drug desperation. Hollywood has always liked its formulas, and this is one that has remained largely unchallenged. And statistically speaking, most of the women willing to entertain these risks and go ahead with recreational drug use are Euro-American. At least that part is something the filmmakers have gotten right.
Women can make their own mistakes.
Barring more severe consequences, women can even fix and learn from their own mistakes. Different story, same theme. In the realm of addiction, there is no question that the physical, emotional, financial and familial consequences of habitual drug use is horrible no matter what the ethnicity or gender of the person affected. But the road to prostituting oneself for a drug habit is usually a long and difficult one, not one that is typically achieved in a matter of a couple of scant weeks. And still, women in films like Requiem and Traffic are perceived to be incapable of making drug decisions rationally or managing occasional recreational drug use.