From stories overheard in the Hop each weekend, to the quick action against Hanover Police's "sting operations," it's clear that alcohol plays a large role in the campus social scene. However, another side of our social scene often goes overlooked by the unassuming eye. In honor of the upcoming 4/20 "holiday", I sat down with a number of students, from unaffiliated freshmen to fraternity presidents, to discuss the role of marijuana and other drugs on campus. Names have been withheld to protect the students' privacy.
Freshman findings
Most students agree that marijuana has its own culture at Dartmouth, differing from alcohol and harder drugs in a number of ways. A number of factors affect where and with whom students smoke, including class year and Greek affiliation. Though some students smoked in high school, several expressed that it became much harder to find weed when they arrived on campus due to lack of connections to dealers at Dartmouth.
"It's about knowing the right people," a female '12 from California said. "I've been smoking for a while now, but I hardly smoked freshman year because I didn't know that many people, I didn't know where to go, but now I'm more connected."
Freshmen may also be worried about the stigma attached to marijuana, especially students who weren't exposed to it in high school.
As for harder drugs like cocaine?
"I had no idea that coke was on this campus until my sophomore year; it's just something you basically never see in the basement," one '10 girl said.
A '10 fraternity brother felt that as a freshman, it was easier for him to get marijuana than alcohol.
"I feel like since weed's illegal, it's easier to buy as a freshman, as opposed to alcohol where you have to get upperclassmen to buy for you," he said. "[Weed] is illegal for all ages, it doesn't matter if you're 24 or 19, it's still the same risk."
Upperclassman affiliations
The key to finding pot is knowing the right people, which comes naturally the longer you're on campus. While freshmen can find connections through athletic teams and other organizations, pot is much easier to come by as sophomores once students rush and join Greek and co-ed houses.
"Once you enter the Greek system that has its own connections, it becomes more acceptable or even a norm in certain houses," a '10 affiliated male said. "It's certainly more socially acceptable and available."
Unaffiliated students don't seem to have any trouble finding pot, and they can use connections from affiliated friends who know more upperclassmen.
"I don't think Greek or non-Greek has any bearing on how willing people are to do pot," an unaffiliated '10 male said.
Taking it upstairs
Within Greek houses, a large part of the marijuana scene takes place out of the basement, upstairs, in private rooms. The affiliated '10 male explains that this is due to concerns about privacy and the environment you want to create while smoking.
"People want to share the experience with friends rather than random people," he said. "Going upstairs has to do with the fact that it's a more private space and you're restricted to just your selected group of friends."
Smoking with a "selected group of friends" makes students feel more comfortable knowing they won't be shot glares across the room from disapproving peers, as our Cali girl put it.
"By separating and going to an upstairs room you don't have to worry about being judged," she said.
Despite the fact that alcohol is also illegal for anyone under 21 it is generally deemed more socially acceptable than marijuana, and is thus consumed more openly by students of all ages and affiliations.
"There's a huge misconception about pot. Most people are OK seeing it every once in a while, like on 4/20, but people look down upon frequent use of smoking," the '12 girl said. "People look down on it since it's a drug, but it's a lot safer than alcohol."
Getting busted
While using marijuana may very well be safer than the binge drinking that goes on at Dartmouth, students of all ages are aware of the risk of getting caught by Safety and Security. Besides the more personal setting, smoking upstairs also keeps activities hidden during S&S walkthroughs. Two '11 fraternity brothers described how their pledges practice emergency scenarios to hide unregistered kegs and illegal drugs in the case of a fire alarm.
"The house has an emergency protocol to keep the house safe," they said. "If a fire alarm goes off that means HPO is coming and there's a protocol that we follow and practice."
Luckily, S&S often seems to be more relaxed than expected when encountering students with marijuana. The '12 girl told me that while she was caught twice by S&S, she never received any punishment or sanctions. Once S&S even walked into her and a friend smoking in her dorm room.
"We were just staring at my roommate's poster, [the officer] just comes in and we said we didn't have anything and they just left," she said. "That happened to me one other time when we were on the fire escape. I said Oh we're stargazing! We're looking at stars in the sky.' And [the officer] just left."
The '11 fraternity brothers also said that they had never heard of anyone on campus or in their fraternity being sanctioned for marijuana. One possible reason for this is that marijuana violations have harsher legal punishments outside of Dartmouth, so S&S officers have an incentive to turn a blind eye.
House Rules
Though S&S might not be cracking down too hard, every house has rules, both official and unwritten codes, regarding proper etiquette for using marijuana and other drugs.
"You can't smoke in the basement or on the first floor, you can only smoke upstairs but sometimes no one says anything if you smoke in the basement," an '11 in a local sorority said.
The '12 girl, who is also in a local sorority, said that in her house smoking is only allowed on the outside porch at night, but baking is allowed in the house kitchen. However, she described another local sorority in which sisters frequently smoke both inside in their rooms and on their porch. She also said that she and her sisters are also not supposed to directly mention marijuana in house blitzes, though she said "I've blitzed out before about brownies."
Many houses use code words when referring to alcohol, marijuana and other drugs via blitz. The '11 fraternity brothers explained that they never reference weed in house blitzes, and they speak about it discreetly via Gmail. As for where they can smoke, their fraternity "takes the same approach to it as dorms, just be careful and don't piss anyone off."
"Never smoke in the basement, smoke other places when it's appropriate and the door is closed," they said of their house's rules.
When it comes to harder drugs, their policy is "out of sight, out of mind." Other drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy are tolerated, but they said that there are "certain drugs," such as heroine, meth and PCP that they would never allow in the house.
"There are some drugs we tolerate sort of if it's completely in a brother's room and it's not a public thing at all," they said. "There are some things that are just taboo, don't snort in social spaces."
The fraternity brothers also added that there is a "general wariness about prescription drugs, Adderall more tolerated, but it's something that's not public."
Other houses have more liberal policies toward smoking in their houses.
"I can't think of any places where we're not allowed to smoke under smoke detectors maybe," one '10 in a fraternity said.
Some houses even try to spread the love and make smoking a group activity.
"If you're going to be smoking in the basement but you have a lot, you're expected to share," an '11 male in a fraternity said.
Dealing
Now that you know some rules about smoking, you may be wondering how everyone gets their hands on the goods. While in the past there have been more "big time" dealers, the students interviewed presented a more decentralized system on campus these days. Since there isn't a huge weed scene in the greater Hanover area, students rely on shipments from friends from home and at other colleges, visiting alumni and trips to Boston and New York.
The '12 girl explained that it is "hard to have mass quantities of weed shipped," but she does ship it from home. She also knows several fellow Californians who have prescriptions for medical marijuana and obtain their pot legally in CA, then ship it to campus too. However, several students note that the majority of pot on campus does not come from students with prescriptions.
Another '11 fraternity member explained the system his house used to have for dealing.
"We used to have a house dealer, someone who lived in the house, who got a discount on their housing," he said. "People could go into his room and leave money and take a bag [of pot]."
This former system is certainly not the norm. As another '11 fraternity member added, "there's nothing too organized in terms of dealing."
