Big drug bust in Charleston, SC

Parent Cafe
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@carolinamom2boys I was not trying to single out CofC. It was just a wake up call me me personally (for all college life). My family has been in and around Charleston for a very long time (even if I have not lived there in some time), and my sister attended CofC. I guess I was just surprised how big this story was. Charleston likes it’s fun, but I didn’t realize the extent of the drug use. My kid is interested in Greek life and I wouldn’t stop her from participating. But I did forward the article to her – more as a general discussion starter than a negative opinion of Charleston (or the college). I do have to admit that the use of pledges as couriers was disturbing to me. It is very hard for a kid who wants to join a fraternity to say “no” to any request from the big brothers…

But I am glad to hear that the college and the PD are on top of things. I am also not naive enough to think it doesn’t happen at “nice” schools, but the fact that the administration is willing to address things is great. I don’t think anything can totally prevent this stuff, but you like to see a situation where kids feel free not to join in.

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@london203 I appreciate that. Many others have singled out CofC . I also participated in Greek life in college, and I understand how difficult to may be to say no to requests made during pledge, but these are people choosing to engage in illegal activity . It’s hard for me to view them as victims in all of this. At some point common sense needs to prevail. At what point does the need to belong to a group justify that behavior ?

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I don’t think this is limited to any one school, I suspect similar things are going on all over. When I went to school at NYU back in the dark ages of the early 1980’s, most of the drug use was pot, or maybe hash. Given the demographics of NYU back then, Cocaine and heroin and the like were just too expensive, the school was not as upscale as it is today. These days I here from the grapevine that drug use these days is not just pot, but that more ‘serious’ drugs are rampant, including heroin, cocaine, and other wonderful conconctions, including date rape drugs.

None of what i read surprises me, people’s assumptions about drugs are way, way out of date, this is no longer the realm of the underclass. There are several high schools near where I live in very affluent towns, high schools that are generally ranked some of the best in the state and/or country, and all of them have big drug problems, they have routine locker searches, use drug sniffing dogs and the like. From what has been writen about it, the cause is affluence, that these kids have the money to buy drugs and other kids are more than willing to supply them and make themselves tidy bits of money, seeing themselves as ‘entrepeneurs’ rather than criminals. At many universities, they are deliberately attracting kids, both from the US and overseas, who are well off enough to pay full freight, and with that kind of money on campus it shouldn’t be a big surprise that drug dealing and using is rampant.

That said, I think it would be idiotic to rule out any school based on things like this. It is going on most places, and the thing is that if your kid is tempted by that stuff, it doesn’t matter where they go, whether it is this school or USC or NYU or Columbia or (likely) any of the other Ivies, and the reality for most kids going to those schools is they can avoid it and do, I don’t think this represents the schools or most of the students who go there, it reflects a reality of where affluence and a lack of scruples and ethics collide, and you see that everywhere. Put it this way, from working on Wall Street for as long as I can, if you think that the traders who tend to be from more ‘down to earth’ backgrounds or the bankers and such recruited from elite universities don’t have the same issues among more than a few of their members, I have a bridge to sell you, yet the majority of people who work on Wall Street aren’t part of that shrug.