Anybody Got a Smoke & a Light?
“Can you pass me that?” asks Dom. “And shut that fucking door.”
“Sure, just let me get my share of it first,” Tony reaches behind his back to close their dorm room’s door.
The walls are beige, with an American flag tapestry and a thin LED-light strip running along the ceiling.
Two desk chairs sit close to the middle of the room while two twin beds are pushed against the walls.
“It’s not like you paid for it anyway man,” Dom scans the room, “just give me my shit.”
“It’s just been a long week,” Tony pulls a lighter from his pocket and drags his thumb across its spark wheel. “I’ll pay you back next time anyways.”
The click echoes around the room, and a flame jumps from the lighter.
He moves it toward a blue glass pipe he holds in his opposite hand.
“Wait, wait,” Dom looks to the ceiling, “you’re going to set off the fire alarm, then we’d be fucked.”
“Can you calm down?” Tony turns to face Dom. “Pass me that toque.”
Dom lifts the winter hat off the bare floor and passes it to Tony.
“Watch this,” Tony stands up and reaches to the ceiling and stretches the wool hat around the room’s lone smoke detector. “Easy as that.”
“What about opening the damned window?” asks Dom, looking towards it. “Don’t be lazy, you’re already standing up.”
“Why don’t you do something?” scoffs Tony. “Can we at least move closer to the window, then, and blow the smoke out of it? Then it won’t smell in case the CAs come.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” replies Dom. “Can we get a move on though, I have shit to do.”
Tony cracks open the room’s window as Dom drags two chairs behind him.
“Shit it’s cold out there,” Tony sits back on one of the chairs.
“Yeah, I miss doing this outside,” complains Dom as he joins Tony. “Finally,” Tony puts his mouth over the hole of the pipe and puts the flame on the opposite one.
His chest becomes broader as he breathes in. He pulls the pipe away from his mouth and sets the lighter on the floor.
He holds his breath for a few seconds and exhales a thin stream of white smoke that lingers in the air. A skunky odor follows the smoke and fills the room.
“Here you go,” Tony coughs and passes Dom the pipe and kicks the lighter to him, “damn that reeks.”
Tony and Dom are not the only college students smoking pot. Nearly a quarter of American university students admit they have used Marijuana within the past 30 days, according to Statista. That makes it the most popular drug amongst that demographic. However, alcohol remains the most commonly used substance on college campuses.Assistant Vice President of Safety & Security Pat Gagnon says that SLU does not follow the national usage trend.
“In my opinion, marijuana has become the drug of choice,” he says. “We are seeing a decline in alcohol use.”
Gagnon believes that weed became popularity at SLU spiked after its 2021 decriminalization in New York State. Gagnon is not concerned all that much with smoking itself.
He says he cares more about safety.
“My concerns around marijuana use are related to smoking inside the residence halls,” he clarifies.
“We had a fire in a theme house a few years ago related to smoking marijuana in a room.”
That fire happened in 2016 and involved seven members of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity who lived at 72 Park St. The fire started after someone in the house emptied their ashes into a trash can, according to Gagnon.
“Within a few minutes the trash can caught fire, the smoke detector was compromised, and the flames had to reach the heat sensor to activate the fire alarm system,” he warns. “Fortunately, everyone was able to get out.”
Gagnon points out that most of the smoking on campus happens inside the residence halls, which fuels his safety concerns.
“We often find smoke detectors compromised which places the safety of the building occupants at risk,” he says, typically with a beanie.
Gagnon also remembers rare occasions when students smoked in academic buildings.
Burke and Chett are both members of the same club at SLU, they are on the same athletic team, and they have the same friend group.
However, they both have different thoughts about marijuana, and those thoughts surfaced during a study break in a closed-off room in the student center.
“I’ve never touched it, I personally don’t think it’s a good thing,” admits Burke, who is sitting opposite Chett at a table.
“But it’s not like I dislike people who do it.”
“It’s just a nice feeling to end the day, get a litto little high for the night, tle hang out and relax,” Chett wiggles his fingers.
“Same idea as a nice cold beer after a long day of work, but it does kinda smell.”
“That’s not something that I can’t deal with, but I don’t like smelling it, the school is even gaining a reputation for it,” Burke looks across the table.
“If it’s all the time, too much, then it gets bad, you remember our ranking in the Princeton review.”
Every year, The Princeton Review publishes the top-25 colleges by marijuana usage in its “Reefer Madness” category.
The category ranks at more than 300 schools by asking college students about the usage of marijuana at their school.
In 2023, SLU finished 21 from the top on that list, which was headlined by Lewis and Clark University in Portland, Oregon. Skidmore—an Upstate New York similarly sized to SLU—came second.
“I think kind of funny that the dorms always smell like weed,” Chett smirks. “And I think it’s cool that as a small liberal arts college in nowhere New York that we’re ranked that high.”
“I think they’re trying to get people outside to smoke, like with those bubbles,” explains Burke, referencing a couple of bubble-shaped, clear-outdoor tents that SLU installed earlier this semester.
Gagnon denied that the bubbles were installed for smoking when asked.
“I’m not going to lie,” chuckles Chett. “The first thing I thought when I saw the bubble was that it would be a great place to hotbox.” The two sat in silence for a moment.
“One time my friend had a joint inside and asked if I wanted to smoke,” says Chett before Burke could say anything. “I lit up with him. It’s inconvenient and cold to go outside and I’m not an idiot.”