<p>
I have pretty recent experience. I graduated all of 5 years ago (I started school, left, and then came back later to finish). I know that this is ancient history, or that my opinion is somehow otherwise invalid, but still it seems recent enough to have some bearing. It is my hometown, which I go back to regularly. I have friends still who are in town and/or in school, including my niece. I think I’m still pretty close to it.</p>
<p>
Well, it isn’t an exaggeration, and its not false, so apparently I just didn’t know the people getting busted. I worked my way through school by working in area restaurants, and I was literally the only person at my last restaurant job who was NOT getting high on a near-daily basis, and yet I only ever knew the one person to get arrested.</p>
<p>I just checked Penn State’s Clery Law statistics, and they had about 300 drug crimes arrests each of the last few years - which is an average of less than one a day for a school with 44,000 total students. Not bowling me over. And 5+ students a day cannot be that common a occurence - perhaps home football games and other big party days when cops are everywhere and students get stupid.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.police.psu.edu/cleryact/documents/2009-101504%20c%20PolicySafety_UnivPrk.pdf”>http://www.police.psu.edu/cleryact/documents/2009-101504%20c%20PolicySafety_UnivPrk.pdf</a> </p>
<p>Plus, that’s just arrests. Sentencing? Depends a lot on the amount of drugs, but most first-time low-quantity offenders get ARD which includes no prison time and an expunged record. Heck, the only people I have EVER heard getting more than ARD are those people who were dealing, using something harder than MJ (the guy I knew bought coke), or really managed to do something else stupid along with the possession. The scenario envisioned by the OP, the user with a felony rap for a dime-bag, that is a pipe dream, or perhaps the result of telling the cop and the judge what you really think of them. Not a typical result.</p>
<p>[Court</a> Report: Jan. 8 - Local | Centre Daily Times - State College, PA | Penn State, Nittany Lions, weather, news, jobs, homes, apartments, real estate](<a href=“http://www.centredaily.com/2011/01/08/v-print/2441366/courtreport.html]Court”>http://www.centredaily.com/2011/01/08/v-print/2441366/courtreport.html)
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