Drug culture

college316
Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:16:33 +0000

Last year, the Rice Wellness Center did a survey of all undergrads about this issue. Alcohol is DEFINITELY the most prevalent of all drugs–about 66% of students drink. Marijuana is the second most prevalent, with only 13% users. Harder drugs (coke, etc.) are used by about 1% of the population. Nationally, we are on par with the average for alcohol consumption among college students, but are far below average in terms of everything else.

Interestingly, students were also asked to estimate the number of drug and alcohol users, and often grossly overestimated these figures.

In general, students don’t really do hard drugs, because if they did they’d fail out. O-Week coordinators, masters, and RAs create floors of residential colleges with similar experience levels and interest levels in terms of drugs and alcohol, so if you’re not into that stuff, it’s unlikely that you’d be put on a floor where that’s a big part of the culture.

In terms of my own experience, I would say alcohol does make up a portion of the social culture here, but other drugs are pretty rare. I’m sure they’re around campus but people don’t go around talking about them or pressuring you to use them. I guess I would say they’re there if you want but unless you actively go looking, you probably won’t be able to find them.

Finally, though alcohol is the most prevalent drug here, that’s definitely not to say that you need to drink to have fun. The residential college system offers a great family-like environment with tons of fun programming and activities that don’t revolve around alcohol, and as there are many many students who don’t drink at all, they typically don’t have any problem finding friends who feel the same way they do.