Stanford UniversityDrug Safety Summary

Written by Alexandria Butler

Alexandria Butler

Hometown

St. Louis, MO

Major

Communications, Spanish

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Drugs don’t appear to be a major part of life at Stanford. The most popular substance that is used, and sometimes abused, is alcohol. The only drug that students mention with frequency is marijuana, which is probably more popular at Stanford than smoking cigarettes. Most Stanford students have never used or even witnessed others using anything harder than pot. Students are generally happy with the level of drug use (or, more appropriately, lack of drug use) on campus. Both the drinkers and pot smokers do their own thing and generally don’t cause problems for others. If you’re not into drugs, you won’t be subjected to any real social pressure to try them.

Most students at Stanford drink, and probably 20 to 25 percent of students smoke pot to some extent, ranging from isolated experimentation to near-daily usage. The use of harder drugs is very limited. That’s not to say that drugs are entirely absent from campus, but certainly they're nothing to be concerned with. At a school where academics outweigh nearly every other scene, you’re not likely to find many students willing to compromise their studies for a quick fix of any kind.