APATHY FOSTERS APATHY

There is a stereotype mumbled about campus that generates a quick response from students saying they do not care about what happens around them.

Stereotypes have a funny way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

College embodies a certain culture of experiences that range from sleep, homework and class to parties, alochol and drugs.  Students can participate in either end of the spectrum, but at what level do students care about others when it comes to illegal substances like drugs?

Marijuana and opium are considered "soft" drugs and "hard" drugs are in the same category as crack cocaine and heroine.

Students are pretty clear about their personal choice involving both areas.  But at what point does another's choice to partake in such activities become an inhibiting factor to those who choose not to?

For example, let's say a student goes to a party that has marijuana and is offered it.  He says no.  Does he leave the party because there is marijuana, even if there is alcohol? Or does he stay and not care about what the other person chooses to do with their life?

Because ultimately, when someone says they do not care about another's choice, they are letting that person take whatever road they will take, and if they go downhill with their life, that is their fault.

Regardless, the student would probably stay.

He would also prefer that the marijuana wasn't there to begin with and if they are going to smoke, that they do it at another location.  But that choice is theirs and it's OK if it takes them downhill -- he sure isn't going with them.

The drugs are going to be around.  Even harder drugs tend to receive public interest in curbing their trafficking but there is a general apathy towards softer drugs like marijuana.  Students simply don't care about what other students are doing unless it begins to invade personal space -- only if the other individual is not their roomate, best friend or brother.

Not like the other isn't any of those things to somebody already.

There is a ridiculous amount of time and energy ( and probably money ) wasted policing drug use, which is in alignment with the law.  Maybe students don't care for that reason, so they don't get caught.  That's OK but someone else is.

Students who have any sense of morality and humanity would not let another person waste their life if they felt like it was being wasted.  This is not just with drugs, but with homework, driving and alcohol as well.

Otherwise, stereotypes become truth.