<p>i think its just agreed here that..drugs are bad
stay above the influence</p>
<p>i’ll toast to that… with lemonade, of course. :)</p>
<p>pot definitely isn’t the worst. but many people who try pot want something even “better.” they might say to themselves, just once, no harm. but it’s a cycle, if you start one there’s a much greater chance you’ll get involved in more. In fact, one of my friends todays just told me that his mother weighs 80 pounds and is in rehab. why? in his words “she’s a druggie.” altho i agree that marijuana isn’t the worst in itself, it can start you off on a worse path. not to mention all the stuff you can do when your high.</p>
<p>if you really want the hard facts on it, “Go Ask Alice” is the book to read. it’s a TRUE, REAL DIARY of a girl on drugs. she tried one first accidentally, and then she wanted to tru marijuana, just once, then she got into other stuff. later she was selling pot to grade schoolers and died of an overdose a year and a half later. it’s an amzingly haunting book, one that definitely scared me even more about doing drugs. it’s TERRIFYING what she got herself into, just by trying a small drug once.</p>
<p>so, i am completely and totally anti drug, whether it be marijuana (except, as mentioned, in the case of illness) or worse.</p>
<p>i read that book, and it did indeed have a quite profound effect on me. however, i was just trying to make a point that doing drugs does NOT make you a bad person. you just didn’t make the right choice (in society’s eyes). so yeah, people. stay above the influence.</p>
<p>i agree, it doesn’t amek you a bad person. but it can create ACTIONS that DO make you a bad person. the drug itself isn’t evil, it’s what it makes you do. i mean, how many cases do you here on the news about crime sthat happen because some guy was high? tons. it’s ridiculous how much better off this earth would be if there weren’t any drugs.</p>
<p>I think tha pot is less addictive than cigarettes and makes you less stupid than alcohol, but it is such a WASTE of time. I’ve seen some of my friends waste day after day away to get high and I don’t think I would ever take up time with something as ridiculous as that.</p>
<p>Pot “isn’t harmless”?
Get high then come drive to my house…</p>
<p>I agree that by itself its only “second tier” to most other drugs but when you’re put in a situation under the high then you’re screwed.</p>
<p>it’s like views on abortion</p>
<p>I am not pro abortion, but I am pro choice</p>
<p>I don’t want people to smoke marijuana, but I don’t think anyone has the right to judge another based on a small aspect of their life, as if that defines them.</p>
<p>Everyone leads their own life, that’s it. Focus on the choices that you make and make sure you’re making the right one, rather than spending your time looking down on people who are in actuality equal to you. Just because someone has a different lifestyle doesn’t mean that they’re wrong and that you have the right to judge them</p>
<p>***I never read it, but go ask alice was made up. drug addicts do go through horrible events that happened in the book though, so don’t think that stuff like that never happens just because the book is fiction</p>
<p>I just wanted to bump this up. :)</p>
<p>“Ain’t no party like a drug free party, cause a drug free party don’t stop. WORD!”</p>
<p>Some guy came to our school for an assembly and made us rap that sentence like 50 times, actually very amusing to do, especially when it gets you out of band for an hour. =)</p>
<p>I am so hooking up with someone in the chapel. 
hahaha</p>
<p>This was a very interesting discussion to read, and I thought I’d share my thoughts. I certainly won’t go into detail online, but I can assure you I have had a great deal of exposure of everything discussed online, though I have never smoked or drank (outside of passover. good times.)
cricket, you said that smoking marijuana does make a person “lesser” in your eyes. Why? I certainly agree that doing drugs at at $45,000 a year boarding school is a foolish decision to make. I think that for the same reason I think that violating car permission, having illegal partials, or failing classes due to laziness is a foolish decision to make. I think we can all agree, self-sabatage =bad. However, I am not so superior as to believe that any person who breaks the rules is a lesser person than I am. They simply made a decision that I didn’t make, that they are prone to make as teenagers exploring their boundaries, that many intelligent, well-meaning kids have made before and will make again. It was their choice, and they should pay the consequences, but those consequences should not be a lessening of their worth as people.
You seem very against drugs, specifically arguing that it is a bad idea to smoke marijuana because it is dangerous to put yourself in a position where you are under that kind of high. At the moment, I am on two heavy prescription drugs for severe back spasms, which I will most likely require for months, into term, and possibly through the year. They do give me a significantly altered state of conciousness, skewing my judgment, sometimes inducing heavy dizziness, some drowsiness, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, and generally feeling significantly less pain in my whole body, as well as a feeling of general relaxation. Hm. Sound familiar at all? Yes, it is for a medical reason, prescribed by a highly qualified neurologist and entirely legal, but not an life-threatening one. Is this a stupid decision? Allowing a trade off of a release of extreme stress and pain for an altered state of mind in which my decision-making is less precise? The United States government doesn’t think so.
Getting into other drugs, let’s think about some other legal ones. Like, alcohol. No, alcohol isn’t legal for students. But it is for adults. I have personally known alcoholics, and I can tell you, being addicted to alcohol is absolutely more dangerous than occasionally smoking marijuana. Unquestionably. Alcohol is also more addictive, and there are more addicts in the US. Marijuana is not highly addictive at all, nothing like cocaine or heroin in that sense. Or, for that matter, cigarettes. Cigarettes are highly addictive, and incredibly dangerous, killing 1200 people a DAY. Marijuana vastly pales in comparison. It, for the most part, causes arrests. Not deaths. Yes, in the very long term, it can cause brain damage. Not nearly as vast as alcohol can, and even when it does, it won’t destroy your lungs like cigarettes can. To be clear, I understand that you’re not advocating cigarettes or alcohol; I’m just pointing out that using legality as a marker for right and wrong when it comes to drugs is just plain arbitrary. It is based on government profit, not on how harmful the drug is.
Furthermore, I would like to correct the assumption that smoking marijuana, drinking, or doing any other type of drug will get you “kicked out of bs in a minute.” I’m not sure of the policy of drugs at other schools, but no one at Andover gets expelled on a first-time drug or drinking charge. Ever. And, if a person asks for help, or if another person asks for help for them, it is treated as a medical condition with no behavioral punishment–as it should be.
My point, in the end, is that smoking marijuana is indeed a stupid decision to make at a boarding school, but it does not make you a lesser person. And, if you choose to smoke it as an adult or in a safe environment, there is nothing more morally or healthily deplorable about experimenting with it than with perfectly legal drugs, like alcohol and cigarettes, nor is the high produced any more dangerous than that of phamacutical drugs.
That said, crickett, I applaud and stand by your personal stance on drugs, and plan to abstain from them completely. It’s only my perspective on viewing the people that choose them that differs.</p>
<p>Number 20? 15, 36, 40? YES. This is fabulous. Um, isn’t that what photolabs and empty classrooms are for? Okay, and bonding weekends are better than raging keggers. I’m so happy to have read this. I can’t wait to get back.</p>
<p>just dont smoke in school. smoke at home. sheesh.</p>