Elliot Mercier

Scary things abound, coming out of all corners of the darkened earth, even on our institutions of education, and not just because midterms are drawing near. Parents at home eyeing the bill for the semester have their fears bubble to the surface as they think: is my child actually studying for their French history test or have they fallen to the green monster haunting dorms with its stench? Maybe they’ll imagine lavish parties happening on every floor of the dorm buildings or non-stop chaos happening in and out of class, perhaps including runaway golf carts and beer fountains. The reality is much more mundane as they will come to find out. Well, unless they go to Amherst.

Point of the matter is, we all know that there tends to be drug use of some kind happening often on college campuses. Most of it is minor and harmless but can get out of hand. There’s always someone going overboard. If you’ve ever hung out in a dorm building, you’ve probably caught a funny smell while walking down the hallway. That was likely the smell of weed being smoked by an eager freshman, confident that they won’t get caught. If a college campus is lenient on their smoking rules, they probably won’t bother raiding rooms unless a fire alarm is set off or the smell spreads greatly. Even so, medicinal or recreational marijuana isn’t readily accepted on college campuses because it’s being put under the same restrictions and discouragement of alcohol consumption.

This is likely due to the alarmist perspective that parents and educators have on students that go to college, assuming that they all drink, smoke and delve into depravity. They create the “absolute” correlation between substance consumption and academic failure. Anyone who’s actually been a student at a college though will tell you that not nearly as many people drink, smoke or do anything excessive as teen comedies and the media would portray. Outside of that, there’s all the procedures that might need to be done to prevent outrage. Most schools won’t be open to changing policies to accept medicinal drug use, because some might fear a domino effect, leading to the excusing of other substances on campus. Another reason for the reluctance is the fear that allowing possession of cannabis on school grounds will lead to withdrawal of funding on a federal level and generous donors retracting. Everything’s political nowadays so if something unsavory happens, someone’s wallet or bank account will do the talking.

To the eager learners about to enter college, I depart with two pieces of advice: always ask questions if you’re unsure because there should be no ambiguity like high school could be full of at times. If you have a medical condition that can be alleviated with marijuana, speak up. Even if you get a solid no, that’s one step towards how you might be able to work around it. My other piece of advice is just go crazy with the electives, have fun while you’re building up debt.