Smoking Pot Question from Naive Parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At private/independent schools, drugs and alcohol are much more prevalent. There is a coexisting achievement culture that mandates that many kids feel intense pressure to be able to cope with massive ingestion of drugs such as pot--while also keeping grades at a very high level. It is also this way at the more exclusive liberal arts colleges. In public school of course, there is still a fair amount of drug use--but contrary to what may be popularly believed--schools with higher percentages of middle class black families have lower incidences substance abuse. Substance abuse is really frowned upon by middle class blacks. It is a huge taboo. Especially for girls. Amongst the lower classes, it is much more accepted.

Yes, I recall reading that substance abuse is a bigger problem for white kids than African-American kids but I don't know the research well at all.

[Anonymous]

We've had our kids at both public and private schools. Drug use was by far more prevalent at the private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've had our kids at both public and private schools. Drug use was by far more prevalent at the private schools.

We've had kids at both public and private schools, too. In our experience drug use was much worse at the public, especially range of drugs and the dealing. At the private, Ritalin/Aderol issue was an issue, but alcohol was big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've had our kids at both public and private schools. Drug use was by far more prevalent at the private schools.

We've had kids at both public and private schools, too. In our experience drug use was much worse at the public, especially range of drugs and the dealing. At the private, Ritalin/Aderol issue was an issue, but alcohol was big.

+1 for us too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:00, no, I don't know the lingo! Could you please define some of the terms you used?

Apologies to OP, as introducing lingo is probably way off topic. But here goes:

A water bottle with a hole jabbed in the bottom is used to "pull falls" which involves letting the gravity of water flowing out the bottom of the bottle create a vacuum to pull the smoke from lit weed on the top of the bottle ... resulting in a bottle full of smoke that can be passed about without wasting any. I know you are all pleased that today's kids are putting their physics class learnings to such good use and are frugal to boot.

"Wake and Bake" refers to the practice of smoking weed early in the morning within the first hour of waking up ... theoretically resulting in a great high. In this area it is a common phrase used to indicate getting high before going into the school.

"Hot box" refers to smoking in a small enclosed place, generally a car or shed, so as to not "waste" any of the precious smoke. Again, so glad the kids are frugal. <snort>

I could go on and on, but my point is that if you keep an eye on twitter and you start seeing references that you don't understand ... go to www.urbandictionary.com and look them up. The kids tend to exagerate and boast, but there is still enough real information that you should keep an eye out. The kids use twitter because they can post from their phones easily even at school. Anything they post is publicly available to anyone who wishes to read it ... and yes, schools do keep an eye out as well.

This lingo above is not very secretive, it's not like you need a wind talker to translate, if you hear your kid say he is going to wake and bake by pulling falls in a hot box, lets hope you're hep to figuring something is awry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:00, no, I don't know the lingo! Could you please define some of the terms you used?

Apologies to OP, as introducing lingo is probably way off topic. But here goes:

A water bottle with a hole jabbed in the bottom is used to "pull falls" which involves letting the gravity of water flowing out the bottom of the bottle create a vacuum to pull the smoke from lit weed on the top of the bottle ... resulting in a bottle full of smoke that can be passed about without wasting any. I know you are all pleased that today's kids are putting their physics class learnings to such good use and are frugal to boot.

"Wake and Bake" refers to the practice of smoking weed early in the morning within the first hour of waking up ... theoretically resulting in a great high. In this area it is a common phrase used to indicate getting high before going into the school.

"Hot box" refers to smoking in a small enclosed place, generally a car or shed, so as to not "waste" any of the precious smoke. Again, so glad the kids are frugal. <snort>

I could go on and on, but my point is that if you keep an eye on twitter and you start seeing references that you don't understand ... go to www.urbandictionary.com and look them up. The kids tend to exagerate and boast, but there is still enough real information that you should keep an eye out. The kids use twitter because they can post from their phones easily even at school. Anything they post is publicly available to anyone who wishes to read it ... and yes, schools do keep an eye out as well.

This lingo above is not very secretive, it's not like you need a wind talker to translate, if you hear your kid say he is going to wake and bake by pulling falls in a hot box, lets hope you're hep to figuring something is awry.

But what's wrong with learning the exact translations from a poster who seems to know? If I hear my kid say these things, now I know immediately instead of having to google it.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the public vs. private comparisons may be specific to the different public and private schools people are comparing. Whitman vs. Blair, and StAs vs. Maret.

[Anonymous]

I'm 45 and have never seen pot, but if I saw a baggy with green or brown leafy substance with a pungent odor I would not have to google it. Similarly, I am a native English speaker, and I think if I heard these terms I wouldn't need to google it. Mark it up to my English major degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no excuse for the school finding out about your kid smoking pot or drinking before you do. That means your kid is using drugs, holding drugs or trading drugs at school. Way too late. Even the most nurturing, liberal minded school is not going to try hugging the drugs out of your kid. He or she will be supspended or kicked out. Either way, the college record is permanently stained.

I think you fail to realize that a lot of parents are either in denial, or simply do not pay much attention to, or spend time with, their kids. Often, teachers notice patterns of behavior, reduced engagement in classes and activities, etc that are indicative of possible drug and alcohol abuse. Also, teachers have other students confiding on behalf of their friends if they think that they may need help. I agree that private schools will suspend and/or expel kids using or possessing drugs on campus, but they often will take a counseling approach if they believe students are using outside of school. I speak from 26 years of experience as a teacher and administrator at independent schools.

It is also tricky for the schools. If a teacher suggests to a parent that a student might be using drugs, often the parent's response is to immediately defend the child and attack the suggestion of drug use (or the suggester, in an ad hominem attack).

[Anonymous]

My step son went to a Baltimore private. In his soph. yr, 10 kids were expelled for cocaine.

[Anonymous]

20:27 When was this? DC in private, I know of pot and alcohol use among private (many schools, DC's on a team) and public school friends, too. Can't compare. I'd hate to think coke was making a comeback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 45 and have never seen pot, but if I saw a baggy with green or brown leafy substance with a pungent odor I would not have to google it. Similarly, I am a native English speaker, and I think if I heard these terms I wouldn't need to google it. Mark it up to my English major degree?

If you heard these terms, yeah, you would definitely suspect something was up. But wouldn't you google them anyway, in order to figure out exactly which drugs, and when and how, your kid was using?

[Anonymous]

Back in my day, the private school kids had the more expensive drugs, like cocaine, while the public school kids did the weed. I don't know if this is still true, or if there's more democracy in drugs these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20:27 When was this? DC in private, I know of pot and alcohol use among private (many schools, DC's on a team) and public school friends, too. Can't compare. I'd hate to think coke was making a comeback.

2 yrs ago. He's a freshman in college now.

[Anonymous]

Notwithstanding the Bethesda mag article (read carefully and you will pick up major deficiencies in the methodology), it appears that in the private school community there is a fast social track with access and money, and a not so fast social track, and drug /alcohol use varies substantially between the groups. There are exceptions of course, but my sense is that in some schools (most?) there is great disparity in usage between the groups. Having attended pubic schools myself, I think the gap in some ways is at least as wide or wider in Local privates