I was also thinking that those who call it "poor person's coke" are misinformed or are basing their info on who uses it. Like, how many successful business-people use Meth versus coke. I couldn't function at a job high on meth and it takes a day or two to recover.
You are completely off.
I hold down a 40+ hour job a week and go school part time-- and I'm a daily meth user. Nobody would ever guess I'm a meth user, and this has been proved because every time I go to rehab people are shocked. I've met addicts who've used for 20+ years and held down jobs, had familes, etc and no one knew. Meth users are just a succesful at hiding their addictions as coke users. If anything, meth helps increase performance more than coke.
As for the recovery, the more you use the more you become used to it, and if you're a recreational user, IME, the comedown after ONE day becomes less.
Depending on what you're buying, I'd say the largest price difference would be about 50% here. Generally it's about 30% with meth being the more expensive. If you're buying fishscale coke is still more expensive, unless you're buying equally pricey methamphetamine.
Prices in meth have skyrocheted in CA though, and a few years ago that wasn't the case. When I first started using (5.5 yrs ago) meth was significantly cheaper than coke, but the price for a gram has tripled since then, and the price for coke has gone down.
I don't think of meth being the poor man's cocaine... I think the DRUGS are really different. To me, coke is a worthless drug; the high isn't as intense, doesn't last as long, and I build up a tolerance like CRAZY. My tolerance to meth builds surprisingly low and it's just better all around for me. I'm sure many would disagree but that's my preference. It's also really hard to find GOOD coke nowadays, quality has gone IMO here anyway. But I'll still take decent methamphetamine over top notch coke anyday.