A student is using a Cornell I.D. to crush a small pile of white powder, piled on a flat mirror in the center of a Collegetown living room. He carefully arranges the powder into five straight, neat lines for the five people crowded around the mirror. The others chat nonchalantly about classes and politics while sipping cocktails. Once the lines are cut, one person pulls out a large bill, rolls it and quickly snorts a line. Conversations continue as the bill is passed around the circle until each person has inhaled his or her share of the cocaine.

It is no big secret that drugs exist on Cornell’s campus. But it is impossible to measure the full extent of the drug culture that exists among Cornell students. Through interviews with students, professors and administrators, as well as several nights spend out with drug-using Cornellians, we can begin to get a glimpse of drug use on campus.

Gannett conducts an anonymous survey regarding drug and alcohol use among students on a regular basis. The most recent survey, conducted in 2005, had 1,969 respondents and an affirmative response rate of 41 percent, with 19.8 percent reporting marijuana use and 4 percent reporting illegal drug use other than marijuana over the most recent 30 days. In 2003, the most recent year with available data, 8 percent of students reported having used prescription stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall without a prescription. Cocaine usage is generally reported as below 3 percent of respondents.

As these percentages reveal, marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug on campus. Illegally used prescription drugs are also popular among students, followed by drugs such as cocaine, mushrooms and, more surprisingly, heroin.

While the percentages of students who use are low, many students assume that they are much higher.

“Everybody does [cocaine],” said Sam,* 21, a junior who habitually uses cocaine and marijuana. “All of my friends do it or have done it. It’s just commonplace among us. Go into Johnny O’s, any number of the people dancing on tables are doing coke.”

These feelings are not uncommon among students who use illegal drugs.

“I think there are pockets of use where a number of people in a small group use [drugs], which make it seem that everybody is using them,” said Deb Lewis, alcohol projects coordinator at Gannett, who oversees programs regarding illegal drug use. “Part of what happens is that when people think about the prevalence, they think about the people they know. If they are using, it feels like everyone they know is using. When they stop and think about the totality of everyone at Cornell, they realize that it is not everyone.”

Certain groups of students are more likely to use illegal drugs than others.

“Certainly within the Greek system you see higher rates of illegal drug use, particularly cocaine or prescription drugs,” said Lewis. “But usage is pretty similar across the board, in general.”

More affluent students, for whom the cost of drugs is less of a barrier, are also somewhat more likely to use drugs.

“A gram of coke goes for something around $70,” said Mark, 21, a senior who uses cocaine and marijuana regularly. “If you are poor, you can not afford that. Most people on financial aid aren’t going to be spending all of their spare cash on drugs. It’s impractical.”

Eric, 20, a senior, has tried almost every illegal drug in common use.

“I’ve done a lot. I’ve done coke, I’ve done a lot of prescription drugs, obviously weed,” he said. “I went through a phase where I enjoyed psychedelics a lot, mushrooms and LSD … The only stuff that I haven’t tried that I can think of are PCP, crack and meth, and I generally stay away from uppers. Codiene, Oxycontin, Xanax, heroin ... that stuff’s all good.”

Eric began using drugs at the beginning of his time at Cornell.

“When I was in high school I was actually very nerdy and was anti-drug. I associated it with being a dropout and a loser and not caring about life. I had an impression that it wasn’t the stuff that you want to do. I’m embarrassed of that, and I’m very proud that I’ve opened my mind. I got curious and tried it and loved it, and [drugs] completely changed my view,” he said.

Many students begin experimenting with drugs in college, where they are free from parental oversight and more likely to be experimenting in other aspects of their life.

“College is a period of time in a person’s life when you’re experimenting with lots of possibilities and the need to experiment and the need to take risks is at a maximum,” said Prof. Ron Harris-Warrick, neurobiology, who teaches the class “Drugs and The Brain.” “This is also when students take up hang-gliding and similar activites. It has a tinge of danger associated with it, which people in their late teens and early 20s prefer.”

While nearly a fifth of Cornell students may experiment with pot, far fewer try the harder drugs that Eric has used.

“I have a lot of friends who are exactly like me. We’re definitely a marginal group at Cornell, but I’m not a unique case,” he said. “All of my friends have more or less similar habits. There are definitely a bunch of small cliques of hard drug users here.”

The “everybody’s doing it” mentality may also play a role in students’ beginning or continuing to use drugs.

“Peer group pressure is also a contributing reason for why students use drugs,” said Harris-Warrick. “Gannett has tried a program to reduce binge drinking by showing that the majority of people don’t get drunk, so a drunk person is the odd person, not the majority, and that approach has not been successful at reducing dangerous drinking. The same is true of drug use.”

Drugs are also relatively easy to come by in Ithaca. A quick look at Ithaca police reports from the summer reveals recent busts for heroin, crack cocaine and many other drug-related incidents.

“It’s not that hard to find drugs on campus,” said Sam. “I’ve definitely never had a problem getting weed or coke. Sometimes it can be hard to find pills, depending on who you know, I guess.”

Most students also procure their drugs from other students.

“We’ve had our share of young entrepreneurs marketing illegal substances,” said Kathy Zoner, deputy chief, CUPD. “It is more common for us to find users than dealers. People don’t tend to rat drug dealers out, they don’t tend to report [drug dealers] until the dealing affects them.”

While nearly every drug can be found somewhere in the vicinity of Cornell, attitudes vary highly among student drug users about different drugs.

Ashley, 19, a sophomore, only uses cocaine.

“I used to smoke pot in high school, but it’s just not subtle enough,” she said. “When you smoke a joint, it reeks. Coke doesn’t smell, it’s small, it’s discreet. When you are high, people just think you are being more social, and it keeps you awake.”

When asked about drugs other than the two, Ashley said she “would never try them.”

“Meth, heroin, crack, ecstacy — those are all too scary. I don’t want anything that can kill me,” she said.

This attitude seems to be held in common among many drug users.

“Cocaine, pot and pills are all I will do,” said Will, 21, a senior. “Anything else is too hard core.”

Other students will stick to marijuana.

“Marijuana is barely illegal in New York,” said David, 18, a freshman. “It is practically like smoking cigarettes. Everything else is much more dangerous, more illegal.”

While marijuana is by far the most common drug on campus, illegally used prescription pills are also quite common among certain groups of students.

Julie, 19, a sophomore, only uses prescription stimulants, such as Adderall, illegally.

“They are legal, and prescribed by doctors,” she said. “Sure, I may not have a prescription, but they help me study. I don’t see any reason not to use them — it’s not like the police are busting through Olin, looking for pill-poppers. There are practically no repercussions.”

Sam has a legal prescription for Adderall, to treat ADHD.

“It’s almost a daily occurrence for people to ask me for a pill or two,” he said. “My roommate asks for one every time he goes to the library. Last fall, during finals, I had an entire prescription bottle stolen out of my desk. Some people say they can’t study without it — but I’m the one with a prescription. I’m the one who can’t study without it.”

Regardless of their attitudes toward specific drugs, many students fail to acknowledge the potential consequences of illegal drug use. Penalties in New York state range from a small fine to several years of prison.

“It seems like we’re sliding back into a society that accepts illegal drug use more than they readily have in the past, but not fully yet,” said Zoner. “People have stopped focusing on the illegality of drugs and more focusing on the abuse of drugs as a sign of emerging mental health issues. Our focus as law enforcement is not just punitive, but also on education and concern about a student’s well being.”

The majority of drug infractions on campus are related to marijuana usage.

Alcohol and other drug-related offenses account for approximately 45 to 50 percent of all JA referrals each year out of 800-1000 cases,” said Mary Beth Grant, the judicial administrator. “Students who are caught dealing drugs typically face separation from Cornell. For students in possession of illegal drugs, the consequences for a first-time offense with no aggravating circumstances would be more likely to include sanctions like a written reprimand, community work, drug education and reflection papers. Either type of offense is likely to create a disciplinary record that needs to be reported on medical and law school applications.”

Though marijuana is generally considered to be less harmful than other drugs, it can still have health consequences for student users.

“Our biggest concern with the amount of marijuana around campus is that people don’t know what they get when they buy it, a lot of it has started to be laced with other drugs,” said Zoner. “Because people are dealing in an illegal trade, they never know what they’re getting. There are no regulations, there are no labels, there’s no telling how a drug will react with someone’s body chemistry. If you take the drugs, where do you end up after you take them? We run into many students who have no idea where they are, how they got there, and will never recall that. Those are scary things. We have a geographical area that doesn’t support irrationality. It is very dangerous to be in an altered state; you could end up in the bottom of a gorge.”

Even unlaced drugs pose serious risks for their users.

“Regular, i.e. daily, use of marijuana really affects learning and ability to study. If you’re smoking marijuana every day you’re not going to get much out of your college experience,” said Harris-Warrick. “Other drugs are modestly addictive, cocaine is roughly about as addictive as alcohol in a statistical sense. There is also always a risk of addiction. For many of these drugs there are physical effects that can be harmful. Ecstacy and methamphetamine are neurotoxins at high levels, and high doses of cocaine can cause you to have a heart attack or a stroke and die.”

Drug use can also pose a risk to students seeking employment for the summer or post-graduation.

“A close friend of mine failed a drug test because of marijuana,” said Julie. “He lost his job offer at J.P. Morgan.”

Regardless of all of these harmful effects, drugs remain a presence on campus. However, their commonality has been decreasing over the years.

“Over the past 15 years there has been a continuous decrease in drug use both among college students and the general population,” said Harris-Warrick. “Cornell saw a brief rise in the use of ecstacy in 2000-2001, but that ended quickly. Recently there has been a rise in the use of prescription drugs, Oxycontin and others, people experimenting with things their parents have in their medicine cabinets.”

All of these anecdotes and statistics provide only a limited view of drug use on campus. Drugs have become a legislative issue, given recent decisions in Massachusetts and New York, and will likely continue to be a hot topic into the future. Regardless of opinion, it is important to continue to look at drug use among Cornell students.