MovieChat Forums > The Breakfast Club (1985) Discussion > Smoking pot and cigs in the room

Smoking pot and cigs in the room


How did they get rid of the smell? Vernon would've expelled them or at least given them Saturday detentions for the rest of their high school careers.

That was the part I didn't find too realistic. No kids are ever going to smoke pot and cigs in detention when the principal is just one room over.

Anyone find this part far-fetched?

reply

I think the library was big enough that they went to a far enough part of it that the smoke/smell wasn't strong enough for Vernon to smell from his office.

When theres no more room in Hollywood, remakes shall walk the Earth.

reply

As soon as Vernon came into the room, he would smell it. It takes a few hours for the smell to go away.

reply

Most definitely. There's a bit dramatic license going on there.

reply

Not really.
Vernon would suspect John immidiately if he had smelled the pot, as John earlier admitted it kinda.
So why would the other kids really care if Vernon would have smelled it?

"Gar nicht so übel, du kleine Schlampe. Man sieht sich immer zweimal, Kleine."

reply

[deleted]

acab.

reply

[deleted]

But he might also smell it on their clothes.

reply

If you're in a smokey room, but you don't smoke yourself your clothes will smell like smoke too.
So that's not really a reason to assume you may have smoked as well.

"Gar nicht so übel, du kleine Schlampe. Man sieht sich immer zweimal, Kleine."

reply

Everybody's clothes smelled like smoke in 1985.
Get on a city bus - smoke;
Go to a store - smoke;
Go to McDonalds for breakfast - smoke;
Come from your parent's house - smoke.


Smoking was prevalent and people did not go outside to do it like they do today. That and some dramatic license of course

reply

Lol yeah my little sister was born in '85 and I think it was not even a year or two earlier that they had started to forbid smoking in the hospital.

reply

There are physical changes to the body when high. The red eyes and relaxed attitudes would have been a giveaway. Maybe Bender, because he's a head, could have gotten away with it, but not the others. And I'd bet there would have been more than a little giggling going on when Vernon entered the room. If you're with someone, leave for 20 minutes, come back and they're now high, you'd more than likely notice, and since high school principals aren't stupid people, he'd notice.

reply

Who smoked cigarettes in the library?

It was a high ceiling in the library and a pretty large open space. Smoke rises. I think the smell would have been negligible.



I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is.. 
.

reply

[deleted]

What about Emilio Estevez breaking a window by screaming? Did you find that realistic? Movie's not a documentary, it's an eighties teenage drama/comedy.

reply

Extremely far-fetched.

Isn't one of the characters - Andy, I think - shown having a compression session at one point?

There is absolutely no doubt Vernon would have smelled it, no matter how big the library.

But if he was seen to have smelled it, action would have been take, and boom, no happy ending.

And we can't have that.




Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

reply

[deleted]

Opening a thousand windows wouldn't have got the smell of Estevez's clothing, particularly.




Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

reply

[deleted]

But that's the point. Even on the off chance Vernon didn't notice, the moment the kids got into their parents cars their parents certainly would notice.

But then again, The Breakfast Club would probably find a way to blame their parents for their smoking weed, as well.




Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

reply

You assume that their parents smoked weed...I don't see that being the case. I can't imagine Allison's parents noticing or caring.

I can't imagine Claire's dad would have any idea what pot even smelled like.

Andy's dad might have noticed, but he seems more like a beerhead than a pothead to me.

Brian's parents....LOL there is no way that his parents have ever seen weed let alone smelled it.

reply

meh. I don't know really. I work in a poor/rough part of the Bronx and come to work at around 7:30am. often times... I smell pot wafting from a window above me. even a couple of stories above me.


and I think that smells DO linger in tight spaces. as I mentioned, it is a poor/rough part of the Bronx. often times kids come in wearing very dirty, smelly and 'crusty' clothes. very few are able to wear clothes that do not have stains. I once had a boy in my class who owned one pair of pants until christmas. his second pair [that year] was his christmas present. and at the end of the week, the already rancid smelling clothes smelled even worse.

now fast forward a child living in that situation five years and then you have puberty BO and body-changing odors.


and I have smelled way old cigarette smoke on my kids.


Oh God. Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more.

reply

Everyone here is making so many weird excuses but yeah, no one would have ever smoked weed in the library. The point was they didn't care anymore, they were over it, even if Vernon walked in.

++++++
Love means never having to say you're ugly. - The Abominable Dr. Phibes

reply

I was in high school just a few years before this movie came out and, trust me, the stoners and metalheads most definitely smoked reefer and cigarettes in the school, outside the school, and wherever else they could get away with it.

As someone said earlier, back in the day, the smell of smoke wasn't some exotic fragrance that signified that Something Evil Is Nigh; "everyone" smoked. Some high schools even had smoking lounges for the students along with ones for teachers. The Catholic high school I attended for a semester did, and I considered that quite civilized of them. I remember smoking in the hallways, bathrooms, and inside the building, typically near the doors, of a different school I attended -- a public one without a student smoking lounge.

It was just a different era, one that -- no matter your opinions about smoking -- was much more free, far more ideologically diverse, and TONS more fun that the present one, which is truly totalitarian with the PC nonsense, the helicoptering parents, and their resulting overly-coddled kids who feel "threatened" and "afraid" and need to retreat to "safe spaces" if they encounter someone who disagrees with them. Kids now don't have a rebellious bone in their bodies -- but think they do as they engage in protests against things the mass media, the Democratic Party, George Soros, their culturally Marxist professors are all against as well. I mean, it's just soooooooo radical and controversial, so "brave," to, for ex., hate on whitey or stand up for gay "marriage," eh? At least the emotionally crippled students of today think it is, act like it is, in spite of its being the standard ideology in every sitcom, movie, and pundit's head out there. It's almost hilarious.

reply

hate on whitey or stand up for gay "marriage," eh? At least the emotionally crippled students of today think it is, act like it is, in spite of its being the standard ideology in every sitcom, movie, and pundit's head out there. It's almost hilarious.


LMAO, I hear talk radio oozing out of this.

No one "hates whitey," except ironically the conservative talk show radio hosts who are filled with so much self loathing and resentment that they have to rant constantly.

I do agree that the 80s was a much more free time period, but that's gone now. It's not coming back and I don't really believe that it's necessarily "gone forever." I think time periods tend to be cyclical. People felt the same way in the 30s and 40s, but you know what? The kids in the 30s and 40s who were suffocated and over protected ended up raising the kids of the 1980s.

It's all cyclical.

My grandmother used to complain about how her mother wouldn't let her roller skate on the sidewalk. My parents spent their entire childhood outside, all day, with zero supervision.

My childhood, in the 1990s, was something sort of in between. I played outside, all day, in all weathers, and I had minimal supervision. No one stood outside watching me play, but there was always an adult who would peak out every once in awhile. I didn't grow up in the burbs, so maybe it was slightly different. If I had, I imagine my mom would have had no problem with my walking around my block, playing with friends, out of sight.

Kids today can't even take a *beep* or walk to the mail box without being monitored. I've heard stories of neighbors calling the police on kids because there wasn't a parent in sight. It's absolutely insane.

reply

I'd hardly say everyone smoked back in the 80s. And the top students, or even just those in the top 50% of the class in the 80s actually smoked way less than those in the 70s and 60s or the 90s for that matter.

The burnout crowd in the 80s smoked but barely anyone else did. I don't think a single kid in the top 25% of the class at my high school smoked. Essentially nobody smoked at the college I went to (OTOH late 90s- a decent number of people smoked there, so I'd say the 80s era actually had less smoking by kids, certainly by the sorts of kids who got into good schools than 70s or 90s kids).

They had an outdoor smoking area at high school for the burnouts to hang out in and smoke during lunch break or if they had time between classes. I think on school grounds they did stuck pretty much just to cigarettes and not a whole lot of pot smoking went on, although I tended to stay away from the area since it reeked. Occasionally you'd see a butt or smell cigarette smoke in the bathroom, but not too often and very, very rarely a joint.

And in general terms, yeah it was a freer more fun time, nicer vibe than later on. One of things I think was worse though was so much smoking everyone. Couldn't even eat a meal a times without some people gassing you out and making you choke. Blech. Sickening. So glad for the smoking bans these days.

reply

At that point in the movie I don't think they gave a sh!t about concealing the odor, otherwise they wouldn't have done it period.

And anyway, from that point on in the film, the principal was downstairs talking to the janitor. He wasn't in his office, much less the library.

There's a good chance the smell could have dissipated in the open area where Brian, Claire and Bender were smoking, but absolutely NOT in the room Andy hot boxed. But minutes later he yells so loudly he shatters glass, so remember, it isn't entirely seeped in reality. This is entertainment and minor details like this aren't really important.

The calls are coming from inside the house.

reply