The following letter was submitted with the intention of informing students about the dangers of drug use and to meet probation requirements.
Submitted by Nick [last name withheld]
As everyone told you before you entered a University, you’re going to have multiple opportunities to experience new things. A lot of these experiences can be great and leave a positive outcome on your life, like trying out a new sport you end up falling in love with, or joining a club that interests you and making a handful of new friends.
But, with the positive also comes the negative. New experiences usually come with the people you meet. Some of these people may not care about your well-being and may even just want your company. These people may introduce you to illicit substances, which can start you down a dangerous road.
The obvious outcomes people usually consider are skipping class to get high and your grades lowering as a result. But illicit and even legal substances can leave you with a worse ending. The most popular drug that people use on a college campus is, more than likely, alcohol.
Even this legal drug has awful consequences. Daily use can leave you with an addiction, an addiction that has the possibility to ruin your life. Even worse, an overdose of alcohol can end up ending your life.
There’s no fixing a mistake when you’re already dead.
But alcohol isn’t the only drug that people abuse. Anything from prescription medications to, the less likely, meth and heroin are taken. All of these drugs can land you with an addiction, in a jail-cell, or dead. A lot of students are also approached with the possibility of trying hallucinogenic drugs, and while these may be difficult to overdose on, death is still a possibility.
While being completely different in a variety of ways, hallucinogenic substances are just as dangerous as other drugs. Anyone has the potential to lose total control of their mind and body while high on them.
I mentioned it could happen to anyone, even those that have dabbled with the above-mentioned drugs.
Full-blown psychosis has the potential to occur at any moment while on them and one could easily be arrested or killed while in this state. These drugs are much less predictable than others, and possibly even more dangerous.
This is what happened to me.
Because I had taken LSD before, I thought I was familiar with the drug. I believed nothing bad could happen and I would enjoy myself.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
During my experience I went into a psychotic state. I lost control of my mind and body, which is a horrifying experience. I ended up yelling down the streets about how everyone should take acid. I threw my glasses off my head and tore my shirt off my chest. I ended up outside the pub on Main Street on a weekday night. There were a lot of people there, and I was shouting vulgar things at everyone, and even grabbed a hold of the bartender who came outside to try and diffuse the situation.
His attempt to get me to leave was nothing short of courageous. Dealing with someone literally out of their mind on drugs is an incredibly dangerous situation. The police were eventually called, and I wasn’t even aware they were on the scene.
While they were in the process of putting me in their custody, I spit in a Monmouth officer’s face. After I was put in cuffs, I was then brought to a hospital where I came down off the LSD.
I received the charges and in the end had to spend three horrible days in jail on a misdemeanor charge that was thankfully brought down from a felony. I’m currently on probation and still think about the situation some nights when I’m falling asleep. I made my future as a criminal justice major incredibly difficult as a result, and every day I wish I could take the choice I made back.
There’s no legal or illegal drug that’s completely safe to use.
Your mind and body can be seriously deteriorated with the use of drugs. Just remember that it’s true when people tell you that the habits you form early on construct you as a person in your later life.
It’s more than beneficial to start forming positive habits for your well being as a person early on in life, or you could easily end up in a less-than desirable situation like I described.
