UNCW and drugs: “That was my skull! I’m so wasted”

Jeff Spicoli quotes aside, two local headlines in the last week caught my attention:

• 2 UNCW students snared in drug raid, heroin seized
• Two UNCW students among four charged with trafficking cocaine

This got me wondering about the drug culture on college campuses, and how it’s changed over the years. I mean, even 20 years ago weed, coke, mushrooms, and Ecstasy were available, but I never saw (or even heard about) smack. Prescription drugs, too, seem much more prevalent than 20 years ago.

Of course, college campuses have always been hotbeds for illicit drugs, but students involved in big time drug distribution rings used to be uncommon. I wonder if our culture of consumerism has lured more and more “privileged” kids into the web of high risk, high profit drug trafficking.

Last May more than 70 students at San Diego State were busted for a sophisticated ring that produced a cache marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy, weapons, and $60,000 in cash. One alleged dealer was a month away from receiving a master’s degree in homeland security and had worked with the campus police as a security officer.

Other schools, such as Princeton and Southern Methodist, have partnered with the DEA to battle campus drug rings.

As Joseph Califano, founding chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), told the Christian Science Monitor: “The drug problem on American campuses has become so extensive that more and more university police are finding they don’t have the manpower to fight it by themselves.” He explained that the stakes have risen in recent years with so many more hard drugs being used and sold.

The inventory of experimental drugs has certainly grown. Here’s a quote from a former UNC-Asheville student, who was asked which drugs he’s tried:

“I’ve done psychoactives, pot, Adderall, dissociatives, Ketamine, laughing gas, DXM (Dextromethorphan), cough syrup. I’ve done mescaline analogues 2C-I, 2C-E, 2C-2, and I think that’s it. I’ve done acid analogues 5MeODIPT, MIPT, DOI acid, mushrooms, DMT (Dimethyltryptamine), ecstasy and methylone, which is an ecstasy analogue. Umm, yeah, opiates, Percocet, some morphine-t made with opium poppies. Oh, boy, Valium, Klonopins, Ativan, Trazodone. No Xanax. Oh yeah, I’ve done coke, but that’s it.”

Here’s another from a Cornell senior:
“I’ve done coke, I’ve done a lot of prescription drugs, obviously weed. I went through a phase where I enjoyed psychedelics a lot, mushrooms and LSD … The only stuff that I haven’t tried that I can think of are PCP, crack and meth, and I generally stay away from uppers. Codeine, Oxycontin, Xanax, heroin … that stuff’s all good.”

These are anecdotal, to be sure, but in a generation that grew up with Ritalin, Lithium, Prozac and other mood stabilizers, it’s no wonder experimental drug use is on the rise. And where there are users there will always be opportunistic dealers.