Editor’s note: All names are pseudonyms to protect the subjects’ privacy.

Pressured to conform

Carter is 15, maybe 16. His teammates crowd around him, chuckling and nodding, shoving each other around. They are at a friend’s house, and it seems like any other day. 

And then, the scene shifts. Somehow marijuana has suddenly made an appearance at what started off as an innocuous hangout. Carter is doing them; everyone is. It would turn him into an outsider if he said no.

Now a senior, Carter acts as if his first moment with drugs from just one or two years ago is a remote memory. The event has become a blur, a distant time he can hardly hold onto.

“Pressured?” he asks, seemingly struggling to come up with an answer. “Yeah, probably. Peer pressure, not wanting to be left out, like you’ve got to fit in.”

He can’t say exactly how old he was when it happened, or who might have been there. The details seem to escape him. But that day unintentionally propelled him into a different world from the one he had been accustomed to his entire life.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It just happened, it was spontaneous, and we never really planned it.”

But the use of drugs has had consequences.

“A lot of people’s grades have dropped,” he said. “I know a few kids who have misused [drugs].”

But because Carter’s life revolves around his sport and his education, he claims he uses drugs in moderation.

“I’m a pretty devoted athlete,” he said. “I tend to stay away from that because I have to stay in shape.”

He added he is cautious to limit his use to avoid problems with his parents or school authorities.

“You definitely have to be smart about it if you do it, definitely have to be responsible. Doing drugs, I guess, is really stupid,” Carter said. “I’m cautious about it because I don’t want to risk not going to school and getting kicked out; that would be really bad, so you have to stay away from that.”

Nonetheless, Carter continues to use illegal substances. Although he said he is responsible about the amount he consumes, he has become part of the drug culture. Because of this, Carter feels as if many people are quick to judge him and his friends because of their drug usage.

“I think when you talk to strangers or people you don’t know very well, they have first judgments on you,” he said. “I guess there’s kind of a taboo, like people are like, ‘Oh, [they use] drugs, they’re automatically bad.’”
 

Rising up from mistakes

Lucy knows firsthand how a mistake can change a person’s life. When she was exposed to the world of drugs in eighth grade, her own life spiralled out of control. Things turned from bad to worse when her parents found out she was using marijuana.

“I didn’t talk the whole day,” she said. “I didn’t want to; I felt ashamed.” 

Though she was initially downcast about the situation, Lucy soon realized that her experience could turn into something positive.

Her parents were not overly upset. They acknowledged that Lucy had made an error in judgment but hoped she could gain valuable insight from this experience.

“My dad was pretty easy about it,” Lucy said. “He kind of just took it like, ‘You need to learn from this, and it will help you in the future.’ My mom was not too OK with it, but she didn’t find it that bad. They didn’t freak out.”

Part of her parents’ easygoing reaction, Lucy said, was because they made similar mistakes to her early on in their lives.

“My family has never told me no; they have always told me, ‘You make the mistakes and you learn from [them],’” Lucy said. “My mom and dad have made the same mistakes I have.”

Despite these mistakes, Lucy finds that her parents are successful adults, who can be proud of their accomplishments.

Lucy herself feels that now is the time in her life to experiment.

“High school is definitely about falling and picking yourself up and learning from your mistakes,” she said. “I don’t think [drug use] will demolish your future, but it does have an impact on what you do and how you go about new things.”

Ultimately, Lucy feels that her decision to use drugs and her experience getting caught have  helped her to grow. Now she feels that using drugs is no longer necessary in her life.

“I would not make the mistake again; I definitely [learned] from it,” she said. “But I am glad I made the mistake, because it’s made me look at things a lot differently, and it’s made me look at things in perspective.”

The bystander

Donna is no stranger to the world of drugs and alcohol. Although she says she herself is not a substance abuser, she cannot say the same for her friends.

“I do have friends who do it, some more than others,” Donna said, “but I myself have not tried it. But I’ve definitely been around people who’ve done it.”

Donna was first exposed to this sort of lifestyle in high school. She speaks about drug and alcohol culture flippantly, not overly concerned. She acts as if it is none of her business.

“I don’t personally find [using drugs] appealing, but if other people do it, that’s not really my problem,” she said. “I don’t really have a say in what people do. If they want to, that’s fine with me.”

She feels, however, that students who indulge in drug and alcohol usage should refrain from doing so on school grounds.

“I think it’s a little silly to be doing it on campus,” Donna said. “You can do it somewhere else, just keep it out of school. You can do it anywhere else, just not here.”

Donna said that most high school students are, at some point, thrown into an environment with marijuana or other gateway drugs.

“It’s pretty inevitable, depending on who you’re with,” she said. “You can’t really avoid seeing it, knowing about it or being around it.”

Donna says students have the power to stay away from taking drugs.

“You can definitely choose not to, and people still respect you if you don’t want to,” she said.

She also said most students who have tried gateway drugs throughout their high school years do not face the risk of becoming addicted or abusing these substances.

“It’s not really a super pressing issue; no one has really overdosed at our age,” Donna said. “They’re just kind of having fun, not planning on doing it forever.”

Donna has had her share of incidents with police due to her friends’ drug usage. Even when describing these “scary moments,” she adopts a casual tone. Nothing really happened; it was all no big deal.

“I’ve had some encounters with police,” she said. “But everything’s been fine because everyone was pretty responsible — as responsible as it can get.”

Regardless of her non-judgmental attitude toward substance abuse, Donna does feel that students should think about their future before becoming a part of the drug and alcohol culture.

“I think if you’re going to experiment, you have to do it responsibly. You can’t just go crazy,” she said. “I think it is OK as a high schooler to just try it out, because you never know what will happen in the future. [But] you have to know your limits.”