Why does anyone really care what others think? If you are married and your Wife is ok with it, who else are you concerned with pleasing. We did not become traders to cure the sick or shelter the homeless (though both are wonderful ambitions). We trade for many reasons, some personal, most obvious; nonetheless, most of us love it and would not change it. Good trading, and focus on your trading and not on coming up with a sociably pleasing description of what we do.
Tell them you manage money for private clients. If they ask about specifics, you are bound by confidentiality. And, if they ask about putting money with you, tell them you are currently not accepting new clients, but if you ever do you will call them.
Being that I'm from Atlanta.. when the average person hears about daytrading, they think: the psycho that shot his family and everyone at his prop firm the reason for the bubble corporate fraud mutual fund fraud some stuff that they can't figure out, so it must be a scam so.. just don't bother explaining. If you are successful, that speaks for itself.
I don't like the drug angle - too much negative connotation. I tell people I am a pimp, and have about 20 women working "under" me. I don't beat them, and have a 401K set-up to provide for their future. I am providing a valuable service to the public and prostitutes alike. Most people respect that.
I remember when brokers were coming to see my father to invest with them 15 years back. Back than I was 17, and i always found these guys to very genius people (Doesn't matter fraud or not) and i were very interested to know how they did it. Tell people you are into "stock market" or "financial business", if they don't know what your saying, i assume they have never listened to CNN or they must be real illiterate