<p>DS has related how at his boarding school, a significant percentage of the boys are regular users of 'dip', and nearly all the boys have tried it. There is a lot of social pressure among boys to engage in the habit-- girls, OTOH, regard it as vile. </p>
<p>The habit is NOT permitted by the school. The kids get health counseling about the dangers of smokeless tobacco, and see plenty of gruesome medical photos of the effects. Despite disciplinary threats the usage persists. </p>
<p>DS says it is common at other schools too. I had not heard of boys using this stuff in the other places we have lived and was wondering if it is a New England thing? Is the habit prevalent at schools in the U.S. outside the New England area?</p>
<p>I think the use of dip is primarily in boarding schools and not day schools. From my kids experience, I can say that it was prevalent at St. Andrews-DE and St. Paul’s.</p>
<p>That’s more like your standard highschool thing everywhere, especially in the more testosterone-packed sports like football or wrestling. Though I haven’t experienced/seen it at my California boarding school, it was quite prevalent at my midwest public school (though we called it “chew”, not dip).</p>
<p>Just asked DS (who’s graduated just recently) about it. He barely knew what it was, and then he said it might be used by some kids but it’s really not prevalent at Andover at least.</p>
<p>^^This thread is about “smokeless tobacco”, and we are talking about whether it’s a “New England thing” that the dip is reaching the kind of prevalence in NE boarding schools where “a significant percentage of the boys are regular users of ‘dip’, and nearly all the boys have tried it.”.</p>
<p>How would I know? I know it’s not permitted, but that it’s easier to hide than smoking or drinking. </p>
<p>Research has shown that teenagers usually overestimate their peers’ use of illicit substances, though, so I would take any teen estimate of peer use of dip with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I have no idea. I’ve never seen anyone use smokeless tobacco, nor a spitoon. In books, people use spitoons. Before the public health efforts to make spitting uncouth, I gather people would spit on the street–but I’m not that old.</p>
<p>It was very common at my public high school in Florida, especially baseball players. Very disgusting indeed. They would carry empty water bottles around and spit it in that. Everyone could see what it looked like. A nasty, coffee-looking brown liquid. Oh man were those kids just so cool.</p>
<p>Sevendad, great comment! When I was at SPS in the late seventies, boys really did have antique spittoons in their rooms (not provided by the school, however!)</p>
<p>I have a child struggling with a chewing tobacco addiction begun at St. Andrew’s. I didn’t know about this until he graduated. It is not cool in every sense of the word and so immediately dangerous in terms of young people in their twenties getting throat, mouth, lip, tongue cancers. </p>
<p>St. Andrew’s is the most drug and alcohol free school I have ever seen, but kids will find a way to do something they see as daring, especially if they don’t feel they risk expulsion. I do feel the schools need to treat dip as they do other drugs, and be alert to the signs. I have talked with dorm faculty at Kent and SPS, and they seem quite aware of boys using soda cans as spittoons, but generally overlook the practice as long as some effort is made to keep it hidden.</p>