College is entirely about drugs–even if you don’t do them

When I arrived at campus, I received some very mixed messages from my school about drug and alcohol use. I attended a mandatory talk about how both were unsafe and mostly illegal, and promptly discovered that my school sells vanity shot glasses from its bookstore. And this isn’t just a little joke shelf. It’s an stand alone aisle of shot glasses and beer mugs emblazoned with our logo. How’s that for confusion? On top of this, marijuana is decriminalized in the state of Massachusetts, and yet, if found on a government funded campus such as mine, is a federal offense again. Since the state of Massachusetts is 90% federally funded university, effectively, marijuana isn’t decriminalized at all.

The upstairs RA is completely unaware of these strange, foreign things called “laws” surrounding intoxicating substances. At twenty years old, he can usually be found with his door wide open, nonchalantly drinking a beer. The hallway smelled of weed a few days ago. He stormed into the building, announced “Who’s been smoking pot?!” and then said, “Oh yeah, me.” We all love him.

Even when, like me, you don’t drink, your happiness hinges on whether or not your friends can get shitfaced. It’s like being a fan of the Phillies, you maintain a hope that the underdog will succeed, and that that sketchy upperclassman will come through, but it ends in bitter defeat. Getting the alcohol in isn’t the problem, it’s getting the alcohol at all. Will you have pooled enough money for the vodka? Will the person bringing it have switched it out for water and drank it all before arriving? Will they arrive at all?

You become personally invested in your friends getting alcohol because they’re just more fun when they’re drunk. No one tries to break into an MIT frat party unless they’re drunk enough to think it’s a good idea or they have enough drunk friends going to be entertained (spoiler alert, that was day 5 of college).

A common question debated among college students is how often to party. Our school president helpfully suggested partying straight from Friday night to Sunday night, leaving the rest of the week for studying. Another important question: how often can one smoke without officially becoming a stoner?

Cool kids have vaporizers and are able smoke in their dorms. Less cool kids have hookahs, which they take into the park  at night. Runners exercise in the park in the daytime, and at nighttime, gay men exercise in an entirely different way. This is the reason for the local stoner hierarchy. Everyone wants a vaporizer.