<p>Hi new parent of a freshman here and wondering what the drug culture is like at northeastern.</p>
<p>It certainly exists, but as I don’t participate, I can’t really paint a great picture of it. I know that some freshman dorms last year had a reputation for drug use, but I don’t think any significant portion of it was ‘hard’ use, and I can’t say if those same dorms will maintain that reputation for another year running. In the last year there were at least two overdose deaths on campus, but in both cases the victims weren’t students (or guests of students for that matter-I think at least one was a homeless guy, but I could be remembering it wrong).</p>
<p>That makes it sounds really bad… haha Don’t let the above scare you (although it might be true, don’t know) though. Most of the “drug” use is pot, and it’s not done by everyone. It’s very easy to just not be involved in it at all. Usually “drug busts” are just when an RA stops by and can smell it, so they write the students up. </p>
<p>The worst things that have happened on campus typically involve people who don’t belong to campus in any way, which is the same as for most Boston schools (such as the stabbing at MIT which involved two people who just happened to be on MIT’s campus at the time). But these stories get blown up and repeated a lot because they are so rare, so the stories tend to sound like it happens a lot more than it does. I work for the residential safety office, and the worst I’ve heard of happening to students is the very rare student that is taken to the hospital. It’s nearly always just because they were passed out drunk when the RAs (or NUPD) came, so they are getting sent over as a precaution, not cause they are in critical condition or anything.</p>
<p>That being said, I have noticed that freshman year is the time when people decide if they want to “participate” or not. Most of my friends who don’t, were offered their first year and said no, and now they are just known as one of those people that don’t. I don’t think I’ve actually had any offers or vague indirect contact with anything for years because of that. There isn’t really much pressure, in my opinion.</p>
<p>And if your roommate was bugging you about it and he wouldn’t stop, you could always report him. One issue that may come up is if an RA finds something in your room (like if you are stupid during room checks), then you’d get in trouble even if it was your roommates because they’d probably figure out that you knew about it.</p>