One former dealer describes "inexhaustible demand" for cocaine. Another cleared $10,000 in ten weeks selling marijuana. A third sells prescription attention-enhancing drugs.
And all three are Princeton students.
Drugs are a significant but often unspoken presence on Princeton's campus. In a series of confidential interviews over the last two weeks, University students detailed an underground culture within which drug use is common and the chances of getting caught are remote. Although most Princeton students do not use drugs, the many who do are largely able to avoid disciplinary repercussions.
Marijuana is widely but quietly accepted. Harder drugs, although much less common, also have dedicated constituencies on campus. In addition, there is a thriving black market in so-called "study drugs," prescription medicines such as Ritalin, Dexedrine and Adderall, designed to boost concentration.
The University, according to both students and administrators, often does not involve outside law enforcement in cases of drug use by students. Administrators place a high value on student privacy and focus on helping students with drug problems rather than on punishing them.
When the University does take punitive action, it concentrates mainly on dealers, particularly those who sell hard drugs, administrators said.
Drug use in dorm rooms is almost never detected, and many campus organizations — including eating clubs, fraternities and extra-curricular activities — facilitate private drug use by members in addition to their more public activities.
"[Administrators] are pretty cool about it," said "Will," a sophomore and frequent drug user who asked that his real name not be used. "The rules are so simple that if you have half a brain you'll never get caught . . . Mostly, its like if you just smoke in your room and just open a window there's no way you're going to get caught."
Marijuana
After alcohol, marijuana appears to have more campus users than any other controlled substance. In an anonymous survey of undergraduates conducted by the University last spring, 20 percent of students reported having smoked marijuana within the last month.
The market for marijuana is extremely fragmented, and supplies tend to flow through personal relationships. When asked how easy it is to find, one sophomore, "Ellen," counted out loud six possible sources with whom she has had contact.
"Personally I know if I needed to go get bud right now, there's six people I know that would have a good deal of bud right now," Ellen said. "My freshman year I thought no one dealt, but I think it was just that I hadn't met them yet."
Ellen said many students arrive on campus freshman year without any experience smoking marijuana and lack familiarity with the complex culture of drug use. They may be less discreet than other users, she said, putting dealers at greater risk of being caught.
"I feel uncomfortable, because back home there was certain etiquette with dealers," Ellen said. "But I've found here that people will just be like 'I've heard of this guy, you should go to his room.'
"Back home that would not be acceptable," she added. "People here feel like they're invincible. Back home, people have gone to jail."
"Jesse," another Princeton student, once dealt marijuana but stopped because the risks were too high. He also said he recognized a sense of invulnerability among students.
"It sort of limits what you can do," he said. "Princeton students have big mouths and aren't very street smart.
"Anyone who does a rational cost-benefit analysis of the risks of getting caught, it's stupid, you're compromising things way too much," he added.
Many students who deal drugs on campus are well aware of the risk, he said, and only do it for the excitement.
Although students said marijuana is abundant, with many people bringing small amounts to campus after trips home or excursions to New York or Philadelphia, there are relatively few dealers who can provide a consistent supply of the drug.
One dealer, a Princeton senior, managed to earn about $10,000 this fall. Operating for just 10 weeks, "Andrew" said he was the only reliable source for marijuana on campus.
"I could get more than other people, get it easier and for less, and it was higher quality than most other stuff," Andrew said.
"I basically saw that I had an opportunity to do something that I frankly feel is a service to this campus. What I did that nobody else has done is that, for those 10 weeks, I never ran out [of marijuana to sell]," he said.
Andrew decided to stop selling despite the lucrative nature of the business because he thought it was too risky.
"Once I made what I wanted to make I dropped it cold turkey," he said. "[I] didn't want to get greedy."
The majority of those who smoke marijuana do so only infrequently, students said.
Although marijuana is in "pretty widespread use," Jesse said, most people only smoke occasionally. "They probably have one friend who shares it with them," he said, "but they don't ever really buy it themselves."
'Study drugs'
"Study drugs" are another major facet of the University drug scene. Medications like Ritalin, Dexedrine and Adderall are designed to help people with attention deficit disorder concentrate normally.
Some students with normal attention spans use these medications to concentrate for longer-than-normal periods on their academic work.
"There are a lot of people who will put forward moral objections to using drugs," Jesse said. "Puritanical upbringing suggests that these drugs are, ipso facto, wrong. Yet somehow, a lot of these objections seem to sort of dissipate when someone has a paper that's due in eight hours that would normally take 12 hours to write."
Jesse, who stopped selling marijuana, said he continues to deal in study drugs because the profit margins are higher.
The going price for Ritalin, one of the more common study drugs, is $5 for a 10-milligram pill.
"I've found that Ritalin is pretty huge," Ellen said. "There are Ritalin dealers. They charge a ridiculous amount for it during finals."
People who start out buying Ritalin often make their way to harder, less safe drugs, she said.
"I've had friends who don't do any drugs then have some Ritalin to get some papers done. And then one day they can't find Ritalin, and they're like 'Oh, why don't I try speed,' " Ellen said.
"I've had to sit them down and tell them all [the problems] that comes from a hard drug addiction," she added.
Jesse added that many students take advantage of the large market to compare the effects of different prescription study aids.
"More and more," he said, "people tend to be like 'OK, this is great, do you have anything else? I've got a friend who's on this, a friend who's on that, maybe I'll try it.' "
'Hard' drugs
Despite the possibly serious consequences, a small population of students chooses to use harder drugs. Pat, a senior and former member of a Bicker eating club, said he dealt cocaine, hallucinogenic mushrooms, ecstasy and GHB (the "date rape" drug) to other students.
He has since quit using and selling drugs.
"I dealt cocaine on campus the majority of my sophomore year, and my experience was that I couldn't get enough of it," Pat said.
"The demand for it was such that regardless of the amount we brought back, it was gone within one to two days maximum," he said. "There was an inexhaustible demand for the amounts we were willing to sell."
Pat said that he and a friend were willing to transport about 15 grams of cocaine to campus at a time. They would then cut the drug, combining it with cheaper ingredients to produce a diluted mixture. Afterward, they would weigh slightly less than a gram of this mixture into 25 "gram" bags. In the end, each contained only about 0.63 grams of cocaine.
"It got to the point where if we came back with 25 of these "grams" to sell, there were at least 15 people wanting to buy more than one gram," he said.
Pat estimates that about 100 students occasionally use cocaine and that no more than 25 use it regularly.
Students who bought GHB from him would use it to get high, Pat said, rather than to commit date rape.
The degree of ecstasy use, Pat said, is hard to judge because many people have tried it, but few use it regularly.
"I just get the sense that there is no one type of person who does ecstasy," one senior connected with the drug scene said. "It's not confined to any one segment of the population."
University policy
The University rarely detects the use and distribution of drugs on campus, and therefore does not often have the opportunity to take action, administrators said.
Last academic year, four undergraduates were suspended for drug possession, and no one was sanctioned for dealing drugs, according to the University's annual discipline report.
Robert Schiraldi, coordinator of the alcohol and other drugs team at McCosh Health Center, emphasized that the University makes ample resources available to help those who are struggling with drug-related problems.
Schiraldi explained that students who are or have been using drugs can find their way to the Counseling Center a variety of ways. Some come on their own, others are referred by a friend, and some are assigned counseling as part of the disciplinary process. Students can also seek help dealing with a friend or family member who has a problem, Schiraldi said.
"I am attempting to reach out to all students, whether it is in the dining halls, eating clubs, fraternities or sororities . . . Because my intention is to make this place an inviting environment for students who have concerns about alcohol and other drugs," he said.
"It's completely confidential. Legally, I'm bound . . . I cannot give out any information to anyone unless the student gives me written consent."
Noting that college health surveys conducted at Princeton show 20 percent of University students smoke marijuana, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Marianne Waterbury said she is well aware that most drug use goes undetected.
"It's a relatively discreet activity," she said. "Unlike students who are intoxicated, who are much more visible and noticeable, who are sometimes found passed out in the bushes or throwing up in the bathroom, a student quietly smoking marijuana in his or her room is much less visible."
University proctors — who are all commissioned police officers and have authority to enforce regulations on campus — cannot search a student's room without probable cause, such as smoke coming from within the room.
When proctors or other University workers enter a student's room for an unrelated purpose, such as a fire safety inspection, they cannot search the room. They are only able to report a student if drugs are in plain view.
Schiraldi notes that the University faces a dilemma in attempting to respect students' privacy.
"The catch-22 there is that students feel that their privacy is more respected than it might be at other schools," he said. "But other students, who might be feeling the second-hand effects of the drug usage, might not be real happy that there's not as much enforcement."
Pat said that, in his experience, the University does not like to involve outside authorities in drug-related cases.
"I was on University probation at the time for an alcohol violation and got in trouble for a marijuana violation," he said. "I said to the proctor, 'You know, listen, this is really unfortunate because I'm already on probation, and I'm worried about what's going to happen to me,' and he said 'Don't worry about it, you're lucky that it's us who got you and not the Borough Police, because the University isn't going to take any harsh disciplinary action against you.'"
Pat said he met with an administrator before his case was called because he was concerned about what might happen to him.
"As long as you didn't date rape anybody or cheat you're not going to get kicked out," Pat recounted the administrator saying.
Pat said he believes, "the University is more concerned with its P.R. than with the letter of the law."
University records show that students are seldom expelled. Water-bury, who handles all disciplinary cases that may involve possible suspension or expulsion from the University, said only one student has been expelled in the last three years. The student plagiarized material on a paper after having been suspended for two earlier infractions, Waterbury said. Most serious violations result in some form of temporary suspension from the University, she added.
"Expulsion is very rarely awarded. A student would have to commit such a heinous act that we never want this person to come back to the University," she said. "Something that would rise to expulsion would have to be murder or something similarly irredeemable."
A student could be expelled for dealing drugs, Waterbury said in an e-mail, but no one has been expelled for this in the past 15 years.
Jesse, the former marijuana dealer who now sells only study drugs, said he believes University authorities are on the lookout for dealers and for use of hard drugs, but thinks that "there might be some salutary neglect when it comes to [marijuana], but in general the cops are pretty on top of things."
Salutary neglect is a term for situations in which authorities tacitly agree not to enforce a law that remains on the books.
Public Safety Crime Prevention Specialist Barry Weiser countered the notion that University officials ignore marijuana use.
"There is no salutary neglect of marijuana usage as far as Public Safety is concerned," he said.
Weiser emphasized that it is extremely difficult to enforce drug laws because it is rare for authorities to catch students in the act of using or selling drugs.
Proctors are bound by the same laws as Borough and Township Police, and therefore are obligated to take action whenever they observe illegal activity, Weiser said.Nonetheless, Public Safety has some discretion to refer student drug infractions to University administrators without notifying the police, Weiser said.
"Are students lucky that they get dean's discipline instead of a judge? I would say that's true," he said.
Neither Weiser nor Waterbury could explain how the University decides whether or not to notify police of a particular drug infraction.
All names of undergraduates used in this article are pseudonyms.
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