DRUGS AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

WHILE I was at Cambridge University, heavy workloads meant that few students
indulged in anything "harder" than a furtive joint in a friend's bedroom.
Those who dared to experiment with speed, ecstasy and acid tended to wait
until after the end-of-year exams.

The Cambridge drinking society culture meant that alcohol provided the focus
of any night out. Membership of a drinking society, such as the
Untouchables, the Idlers, the Scarlets or the Cherubs, was a passport to the
university's social scene and a marker of popularity. Potential members were
always required to pass a ritualistic, alcohol-fuelled initiation ceremony -
which, in some cases, ended in hospital with the latest recruit having his
stomach pumped.

Two years on from my graduation, drug use at Cambridge University seems to
have become much more widespread. When I return for a fleeting visit, I am
told that drugs are now "just a phone call away".

A second-year social anthropology student, whose father allows him to grow
marijuana in his garden, says he has just spent 200 pounds "stocking up" for
celebrations at the end of his exams. "I take cocaine, magic mushrooms, acid
and ecstasy and, when I'm feeling particularly decadent, I smoke every day.
Drugs are a lifestyle," he says.

A second-year medical student tells me he smokes cannabis every day and
experiments with other drugs, such as ecstasy, acid and cocaine, "on special
occasions". After a day of smoking, he "occasionally loses it", but he
insists he is not worried about the health risks of illegal drugs.

"I'm not addicted. I am intelligent enough to make sensible decisions," he
says. "I'm a medic - I know what drugs do to me and I'm not scared at all.
The first time I took a pill, I tested it."

He describes the extensive media coverage of Leah Betts, who died after
taking an ecstasy pill, as "alarmist". "Millions take ecstasy every week.
It's far safer than Nato's bombing campaign ever was," he says flippantly.

He is still smoking marijuana as he prepares for his exams, despite
acknowledging that drugs have "blatantly" affected his studies in the past.