‘Dibble and dabble’
“If I want it, I can get it,” Mary says. “You know who does drugs. All you have to do is say, ‘I want some coke. Do you want some coke?’ All you have to do is mention it, and they’re like, ‘Yeah.’ ”

For Mary, hard drugs followed her to college from high school. She started doing drugs like Ecstasy and cocaine when she was 15. The following year she tried meth. “And I did everything else when I was 18,” she says.

Mary admits that her Sunday-through-Monday drug binge is hard on her body, but she says she only does that much every four months. “My nose will hurt for the next three weeks,” she says. “You wake up, and you can barely talk because your lungs are weak.”

She says she smoked tobacco for four years, and then she just stopped. She’s not too concerned about addiction. “Not that I’m cocky — it’s definitely in the back of my mind,” she says. “I like to think that I keep myself in safe situations and surrounded by good people. I think addiction comes when you only want to hang out with people who want to do drugs with you. I give a shit about not getting addicted and what I’m going to do in the future.”

Mary spends about $50 a month on drugs, “depending on my pot smoking,” she says. “I think the older students, like juniors and seniors that live off campus, probably do it more than freshmen,” she says. “As you get older, your mind gets opened up to a lot of things.”

To Mary, even the definition of “hard drugs” among young people is blurring. Mary estimates that about one out of three pot smokers does cocaine.

Ryan, a 22-year-old philosophy major who asked that his last name not be used, estimates about 25 percent of his friends use hard drugs. How much a person is affected by those drugs varies, though. “It really depends on the person,” he says. “Pills and coke rarely affect me. I don’t feel very different when I take them. But I see people who have taken it to a level that could definitely be defined as hardcore.”

As those students get more involved in hard drugs, Peach says, it becomes harder and harder for them to focus on academics. “A few of them may want to try it, but they won’t stay students very long,” Peach says. “You can’t (stay) as a student with those kinds of drugs.”

Mary says she maintains a 3.2 grade point average and has 15 credit hours of classes this semester. “Doing drugs is different than letting it take control of your life,” she says. “Yeah, if you let it take control of your life, then you won’t be a student long, but if you just dibble and dabble, you’re fine.” It becomes a problem when someone does hard drugs week after week, she says, especially during the school week. “If you’re doing coke or uppers, you’re not going to sleep,” she says. “Drugs take such a toll on your brain.”

Mary also has experienced plenty of scary situations from doing drugs — usually involving Ecstasy. At a rave about four years ago, she says she was handed an Ecstasy pill and was having a good time until she began to reach the height of her high. “A peak on a roll always makes me puke,” Mary says. “I just remember, I’m in this upstairs bathroom. I’m puking. I couldn’t even get it in the toilet. I was just thinking, ‘I’m gonna overheat. I’m going to die.’ Anytime I thought I was overdosing, it was from Ecstasy,” she says. “Some people can handle it. I just can’t.”

Mary also worries about meth. “Crystal meth is seriously like an ‘under-the-sink’ drug,” she says. “It’s always scary for me ’cause I’m allergic to medicines. How do I know they didn’t cut that with a penicillin pill?” she says.