I'm glad I kept out of most of this, as it has degenerated into a preschool level style of arguing. Rule.
But I agree with Rule on a similar level: it seems, as I went through high school, the number of kids who began to use drugs increased rapidly. Our valedictorian is pretty much infamous for puking all over herself in a bra at some party (though I'd still do her). My freshmen year of high school only the football kids drank or did drugs. By the end of my senior year, you could count the number of kids on both hands who didn't abuse controlled substances. A friend and I were amazed at how many kids smoked pot and how it was "normal" for kids to do it. I know I became open to drinking at the end of my freshmen year and tried smoking pot by the start of my sophomore year, but neither spiraled out of my control nor did I advance to anything stronger. I can't say the same for most of my friends, though. Despite peer pressure I still haven't tried salvia.
What's weird about this is that down the street at a rival high school, they treated everything differently. They were the social outcasts/badasses if they went and smoked pot for a weekend. "Oh man bro, I smoked the fattest blunt this weekend!" "WOW DUDE, THAT'S FUCKIN TIGHT MAN!" At my high school, if you said you smoked pot over the weekend a typical response was "oh cool" like it was normal. It got no response out of anyone but the straight-edge kids who didn't even like sex.
Maybe it's the environment you're raised in. Maybe it's just becoming more and more acceptable (how many times has a story related to the legalization of marijuana hit the news in the last couple of years?). Maybe I live in California (where it's "legal" to possess marijuana if you have a prescription) but that goes back to environment. The "club" out here (Cali) in high school is a place to go buy pot.
My two cents.
