I know tonight VH1 is showing the drug years from the 80s to present. I just wanted to know though, in your opinion was drug use amongst high schoolers low during the 80s compared to 70s and 90s and now. I heard somewhere that drug use of teenagers declined during these years but I was curios to hear people's opinion because I know the 80s was the "Just say No" era and anti-drug.
shareI really would like to see replies from older people. Personally when I went to high school (2000-2004) I didn't know too much hard drug users. Maybe some pot, a little hash, or E but not cocaine, heroin or anything like that.
shareI never encountered the harder drugs until the college years. Which also might have to do with geography since I went to college in Malibu and a lot of people do coke, speed, etc. down there.
In high school the hardest drug that was being used besides weed, e, shrooms, lsd, etc. was probably vicodin. Which is a less powerful opiate than heroin. OxyContin wasnt big at the time yet. I went to high school from 1997 to 2001.
[deleted]
I graduated high school in 1982. I didn't even take my first hit of MJ until I out of school(really!); but I was in school classes with plenty of students who were high on pot, speed, black beauties, quaaludes (when they still made them), and of course, alcohol. Although, if I remember correctly, Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' campaign hit hard around 1984.
Ironically, I did more drugs during her 'Just Say No' campaign than probably any other time in my life!!
I do remember the occasional pot dealer hanging out at the field entrance to my junior high and high school trying to sell joints. I'm pretty sure that was back in the days before there were stiffer punishments for possession within a school zone.
My guess is that teen drug use was about as rampant then as it is now...although I don't recall so much meth being dealt back in those days. Most kids I knew (with rare exceptions) just wanted to get a cool pot buzz going.
[deleted]
In the 70's while i was in high school I and most every teenager was stoned on grass. In the 80's when I went to college it I added blow and shrooms to the weed. I remember the "Just Say No" bullsh@t and it did have an impact on the awareness of our parents to drug use. In fact in the 70's our parents were completely ignorant about drug use so we kids got away with so much. After the "Just Say No" campaugn started, my parents were always asking me if I did drugs. It got VERY annoying.
shareI dont know about the 80s but i can tell you about what goin on right now. I went to high school from 2002-2006 (just started my first year of college). Pot is everywhere. I'd say 3/4 of high school kids have tried it and there is a large population of consistent users. in addition, mushrooms and LSD are still goin strong. feed your head. :)
shareI too was in high school from 02'-06' and I can tell you that Pot was quite readily available. If you knew the right people, I could get almost any day of the week, good stuff too. Shrooms, Pot, and E were the most previlent "drugs" during my high school years. Coke was pretty popular as well. only a few of us actually experience LSD from our graduating class, and that was at Bonnaroo. Not many teenagers dropping acid these days.
shareI'm currently in high school, and i have to agree with the two previous posts. I haven't done any drugs myself but most of my friends have done pot, bars (anti-depressants), and of course alcohol. Although I know of many heavy cocaine users (last year's valedictorian!), crack users, and in extreme cases, heroin users. LSD and shrooms are used but not as popular. I think today the highschool drug culture is more intense than before, after reading the previous posts and from other stories, kids today are well aware of the dangers of drugs and are still up for anything and everything! On a personal note, I just lost a friend to a heroin overdose and really hope that one day drug use won't be as extreme as it is now.
share[deleted]
[deleted]
I'm a senior in high school this year, and weed is still probably the most popularly used drug. Next would be crank. Then e. Not too many acid users, or heroin. But majority of us have still tried them.
"Flowers are better than bullets."
-Allison Krause; May 3, 1970
personally, i smoke pot, drink, drop acid, pop pills, nitrous oxide... pretty much all that stuff
I went to high school from 84-88. We were pot smokers. Before school.. during lunch... after school. There was some stuff called RUSH that came in a bottle and gave you a horrible headache but no coke or heroin or anything else was around. I don't think the people I knew wouldve done it anyway. You were looked down for smoking pot let alone anything harder-you wouldve been an outcast for sure at my school. Around senior year acid started to infiltrate but I think that somehow coincided with a certain band being in town or nearby. I lived in an upper middle class suburb of Dayton Ohio.
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
[deleted]
If memory serves, I believe that drug use among high school kids in the 80s was lower than the 70s (but not much), and then went up again in the 90s.
I was in high school in the 90s (a nice all-girls Catholic private school). Drugs were everywhere, and very easy for us to get. The two biggest were pot and heroin, but there was alot of ecstacy too.
"My words choose knowledge over politics."
-Lucinda Williams
As a teen in the 80's, where I was living anyway, the "Just Say No" campaign had little effect on us. We smoked weed, hash and hash oil, opium, did acid and 'shrooms, and coke just as generations before us had. I agree that the campaign just made our parents more aware of what was going on. But we kids still partied hard! If Jimmy Carter had been re-elected president instead of Reagan, decriminalization of small amounts of drugs would most likely have occured. If all the stoners would have only gone out and voted!!