Many see college as a time to experiment. For some, it is the time to take classes you never thought you'd take, explore your sexuality, and yes, experiment with drugs. Last semester two students were robbed at South Hall in what TUPD believes was a drug-related incident, but according to students, this has not changed the amount of drugs being used and sold on campus. And while the harmful effects of drug use are advertised and stiff anti-drug laws exist in the US, illegal drugs continue to be prevalent on many college campuses, including Tufts.
"I never ever had any trouble getting drugs," said one anonymous sophomore. "It's a 45 minute wait for Espresso's, but there's never a long wait for getting weed." He added that while he thinks drugs are widely used on campus, drug dealing itself is not an elaborate operation.
"Drug trade on campus is small-town business," he said. "Normally guys... buy some [from outside people] and then distribute to their friends." As for the incident at South Hall, which many students say they believe was a drug deal gone wrong, the student feels that it has not changed the amount of drugs sold and used on campus.
"There's nothing really to worry about because people deal to their friends," he said. But when it comes to obtaining harder drugs, campus drug users claim that it's all about having the right friends.
"Getting harder drugs, like [mu]shrooms, is impossible," he said. "You have to know more people." Some students, especially underclassmen, find that drugs can be easier to come by than alcohol. Freshman Lauren Rusak feels that it is more difficult to buy alcohol than drugs on campus.
"It's definitely easy to get drugs on campus," Rusak said. "It's easier to get drugs than alcohol because there's no legal age, it's completely underground and people buy through friends. It's illegal altogether."
Rusak explains that people who sell drugs get the word out that they deal in order to attract business.
"It's all word of mouth," she said. "They say stuff like, 'If you need any weed, you can come to me,'" she said. "It's like I know someone who knows someone or there's a kid in my building."
Rusak says that there is a "trust issue" when buying drugs on campus.
"It depends who you go through, if you know people on campus or buy from outsiders," she said. "Buying from people here on campus, I feel there's a level of safety; when you buy from people off-campus [non-Tufts students] it gets sketchy. It's much better to go through people you know on campus."
Another student reiterated that getting drugs is all about whom you know.
"As far as I know, somebody I know calls his dealer, who is another student on campus, buys drugs from him and then he deals it himself as well," an anonymous sophomore said. And as far as safety goes, the student explained that the on-campus dealer and buyer are generally friends who have a trusting relationship. But he added that very few people, including him, know how the drugs make their way on to campus from their original source.
When it comes to harder drugs, like cocaine, most students say that they are not uncommon at Tufts, albeit less common than marijuana.
"I know for a fact that there's a decent amount of coke on campus," one student said. An anonymous female sophomore agreed that harder drugs aren't that difficult to find.
"It's really easy to get cocaine, but not as good [quality] as in New York," she said. "More obscure drugs, like shrooms or opium, I couldn't get immediately, but I could get them," an anonymous freshman agreed. "From personal experience, it's really simple [to get a hold of drugs]," he added. "I know five or six people I could buy drugs from."
Comparing drug use in high school and college varies depending on the students' hometown. Sophomore Ali Kosiba finds that drugs were more prevalent and easier to obtain in her hometown of Amherst, MA, which she describes as "liberal" and "a big college town."
"I think it's actually easier to get alcohol than drugs in college, but I think it was easier to get drugs over alcohol in high school," she said. She reasons that drugs are easier to obtain because it involves going through another student, whereas alcohol has to be bought at a store, where underage issues can come up.
Junior Caroline Park feels that overall, drugs have a greater presence at college than in high school. "[Drugs are] really accessible, a larger part of people do drugs here than in high school, there's a lot of sharing," she said, adding that there is a greater variety of drugs available to college students than high school students.
According to the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHA), the 18-20 year old age group has the highest rate of current illicit drug use (percent of people using drugs in the past month) - 19.6 percent - more so than any age group in the country.
Whether or not people in this age group were in college did not make a difference. The rate of current illicit drug use for the college age population (aged 18 to 22 years) was virtually the same among full-time undergraduate college students - 18.4 percent - as for other persons aged 18 to 22 years, including non-students at 18.2 percent.
