You said “any thoughts?”
We gave you our thoughts.
Ditto with @doschicos about making sure you’re in substance-free housing. If you hate weed you probably hate alcohol too right?
Just saw your follow up about living off campus. Glad to hear.
So you’re moving off campus and you hate conflict…do you think that factored into your decision to pull the trigger on reporting him at the very last minute of the school year? Were you itching to do it all along but didn’t want to face the fall out when you didn’t have an escape hatch? I’m not necessarily asking you to give an honest answer here (I think you are too close to the situation right now and haven’t done enough self-reflection to give yourself a thorough answer yet) But it might be something you should think about and dwell on. To me the questions here are: Why did you wait so long? Why did you not take other options that were available to you even if they might have been a bit inconvenient?
It seems pretty clear that you did the right thing especially as you warned him repeatedly. Any consequences he faces are of his own doing. Hopefully he will be helped by this process he must now go through.
My nephew had a freshman year roommate who used pot extensively. He’s a get along with everyone, quiet, nonconfrontational kid so he said nothing and looked the other way-even though it bothered him. One day, just around this time of year, he returned to his room to find the police there. He was brought into the police station and questioned because the marijuana was found in a room shared by the two students. You can imagine my sister’s reaction when he told her where he’d been that day! He was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing and the roommate left the school. He has no idea what brought the police to his room. He doesn’t know whether the roommate was dealing drugs or whether another student or the RA reported him. No idea.
It certainly changed my feelings about the subject. I think most of us want to mind our own business and live and let live. When a person brings illegal activity into a shared space, however, no matter how you feel about the law or about the practice, you don’t have to live with it. Regardless of how sensitive you are to smell or smoke or whatever, if it’s in your room, be aware that it affects * you. *
Asking for a new roommate is an option but it isn’t all that easy at some schools where the standards for change are high. You can’t just explain that you don’t get along or your habits are different and expect that that will be enough. Nor are all of us so perfect that we know how to handle ourselves flawlessly-especially at 17 and 18. Perhaps there was a better way to navigate this-I don’t know.
OP, I can see that you feel badly about this. Think about how else you might have managed it so you can use that knowledge going forward and then let it go. You had a right to a pot-free room.
@doschicos The problem is that all of your examples of what the OP could have done all put the burden on the OP. Why should he be the one inconvenienced or burdened by finding a new room mate, or moving out or risk getting into legal trouble himself. He did nothing wrong.
You are trying to protect the one who was engaged in illegal activity all while vilifying the one who was placed in this position by the room mate. The legal trouble the room mate is facing is 100% on the room mate. His options were to get rid of the weed when asked and not partaking in an illegal activity. It’s unfortunate it came to this but the room mate had many options himself.
Of course the roommate should have been more responsive and respectful. I personally still would not have reported him nor would I have expected my kids to based on the info presented. Yes, it did place a burden on the OP but so has reporting the roommate. I find it hard to believe that the OP isn’t facing consequences of this decision as well. In fact, he pretty much has stated he has. It was a less than ideal situation. All I am doing is giving my opinions on how the OP could have handled it differently. If it had been the roommate here raising the question, I’d have some opinions for him, as well, which would have included not putting his roommate in a precarious position, moving out and changing his ways. But, I’m not talking to OP’s roommate here.
I’m sure if OP came here asking for advice before the decision was made, there would have been all kinds of helpful decisions above and beyond reporting him.
I think that we are trying to point out that law =/= justice, and that often law enforcement officers and the people who want to become them do not seem to understand that.
I agree that the roommate was stupid for bringing it in over and over again, but there’s a lot to be learned from the way this was handled.
Moral of the story. Don’t do drugs. They make you do stupid things.
@doschicos keep in mind that the OP reported to the RA not police, it was the RA that chose to report to the police. The roommate was doing something that was both illegal and against college rules. I certainly would not my kids to be in the position of taking the rap for roommates drug possession. His only mistake was not reporting it sooner!
I find it hard to believe you’d be ok with your kids getting kicked out of college and a criminal drug record because your kid’s roommate refused to keep his weed out of the room. FWIW, I smoked in college if I had a roommate that had an issue I’d have had a friend keep my stash or keep it some place else.
You were right to report him to the RA but the issue’s your timing, which means you need to work on your leadership skills (conflict resolution in particular.) That’s a good class for you to take if you haven’t already since it’ll help with your chosen profession.
The second issue is the consequences. Being reported to the RA, having a chat or a college hearing with a warning or whatever is one thing.
Involving the police, causing him to have a record is a disproportionate consequence since it may mean no financial aid and having to drop out of college, having lots of professions barred to him. That’s why I don’t think you should wash your hands off of him. His actions have consequences but so do yours. I’m not sure you can do something about it, but you can’t just say he’s transferring and so am I, end of story.
I’ve never done illegal activity within my dorm, or really fought with my roommate about a thing, but I think there are some things that need to be mentioned.
1- The moral grandstanding is inappropriate. You don’t know what’s best for the roommate. It doesn’t matter that you think marijuana is bad for people, it’s not your body. The notion that you’re reporting him on the grounds that you know what’s best for him is totally off-base. Get off the moral high horse. Just cause someone lives a different lifestyle from you, doesn’t mean you get to say what’s “good” and “bad” about how they do it.
2- You should have nipped this in the big and discussed it at the beginning of the year. Waiting until the last 2 weeks of the school year seems petty…and ridiculous. There were 100s of different paths you could have taken to resolve this, and it seems weird that you would wait this long. If being caught was a legitimate fear, you would have done something earlier (this is coming from someone that also explicitly chose a rooommate to make sure nothing illegal would be going on in the dorm cause I feared getting reported).
3- You’re not his parent. Trying to talk to him afterwards and vocalize that you were just teaching him a lesson is…weird…and frankly very condescending. You’re not in a position to do something like that. It’s not like he asked for your guidance. You all have different perceptions of what is and isn’t okay, that doesn’t mean you are right. If you all can’t get along, then don’t mend fences. You made your bed and you should lie in it.
4- The punishment for this could have been much worse, and it’s very telling that you were willing to put this kid at risk knowing the full range of what could have happened. That’s more morally dubious than anything your rooommate did.
As others have said, there’s the legal code and there’s the social code. You all should have had a serious talk about the substance use early on into the school year and been concrete and definite about what you wanted to do about it. Much of that blame is on him for not complying with your request, but some is on you for refusing to do anything about it earlier. You went from 0 to 100 in the span of a day, and that’s not how conflict resolution works.
It’s weird of you to come in here and ask people to pat you on the back and justify what you did, cause it seems like you know that it was a shady thing to do. You need to own this decision, and learn to handle things differently in the future. Yes, you pay for room & board and have the right to a space on campus that is in a certain order. No, you are not morally right or justified for reporting your roommate to the police at the end of the school year.
This whole situation sounds vindictive and illogical.
We are talking with a young adult, folks. Keep that in mind as you dole out your judgment. There are many ways to view what happened and why, none of which we are in a position to judge. He asked for feedback based on the story as he told it. That’s where we have been invited to weigh in.
I didn’t read all the responses. You can’t unring that bell, so worrying about whether you did the right thing is useless at this point. He will never want to talk to you again. The only way to make the process smoother for both of you is to stay away.
@dowzerw In what way should we frame our feedback then? Coming from another young adult, if he had asked any random person on his floor or on campus, he’d be getting much of the same advice people like @doschicos are laying out. There are so many easier ways to deal with things than threatening legal retaliation…
Also coming from a population that is often unfairly treated by law enforcement, I have a huge problem with people using the police as a threat…You really need to learn how to handle disagreements better, because for some people the consequences can be much larger than you think.
Repeat. The OP reported the problem to the RA – NOT to the police.
No. The OP would not necessarily be getting the same advice from his peers that doschicos [whom I often I agree with but, plainly, not on this issue] is offering. I expect there might be the same range of opinions.
Yes. You do need to understand that you are often responding to a teen or young adult on this site, and very intense responses that might be appropriate between grown adults are not helpful. My opinion.
@TheAtlantic He gave repeated warnings to the roommate that he was uncomfortable with the marijuana usage in their room. That takes a lot of guts, especially for young adults who typically don’t want to make trouble.
The fact that he reached the end of his rope when he did can be viewed as he had an amazing amount of patience and an amazing amount of compassion because he warned over and over again instead of just off the bat reporting the roommate. Kind of like how a glass that is half empty can also be half full. The OP gave multiple warnings over a long period. You view his notifying late in second semester as offensive. I appreciate he was so considerate that he gave chance after chance. I would not have nor would I want my children to. There is a line and you may view it as morally dubious to report someone committing a crime; I consider it socially immoral that the roommate continued to put the OP in that situation.
And he didn’t use the police as a threat-he just went to his RA.
And trying to talk to the roommate afterwards? I can totally see that as a naive but sincere attempt to offer a hand. Because he reported the person for breaking rules does not mean he wished him harm. He just wanted the roommate to stop the illegal behavior in a shared room.
You’re not a cop yet. You told on your roommate and got him arrested. No wonder your dorm mates are distancing themselves from you. You were pissed because he didn’t listen to you so you got him in trouble. Leave the guy alone and move on. The damage is done. If you seriously think this guy believes you want to help him you understand nothing about people at all.
My daughter was a resident advisor last year and any weed issue had to be handled by the city police. The university did not allow RAs to deal with it. Since it’s illegal in our state, it’s a criminal matter.