Clayton

“All of my money. All the cash that I get or steal from my parents goes towards marijuana,” CHS student Jane* said.

As the push to legalize marijuana increases across the US, the effect of this psychoactive drug on the student body at CHS has become more apparent. Based on a recent student survey conducted by the Globe, 69 percent of the student body know someone who has smoked or consumed marijuana.

CHS sophomore Hunter Chestnut Perry is among the 77 percent of Clayton students who have not smoked marijuana.

His declination to smoke is especially unique considering his roots in Boulder, Colorado. Perry moved to St. Louis from Boulder in August of 2016 to begin his freshman year.

While visiting Colorado for the summer before returning at the beginning of this school year, weed culture in Colorado and in Missouri became more astoundingly distinct to him.

“People talk about it a lot in [St. Louis], but I haven’t personally seen anyone do it here – I don’t really hang out with people who [smoke marijuana], but [in CO], it’s just in the open everywhere,” Perry said. “You walk down the street and there will be a bunch of people doing it on the sidewalk, or at bus stops, or anywhere basically.”

Perry is not the only one who has noticed the seemingly casual public use of marijuana in Colorado. In fact, many are concerned that the use of cannabis products, especially in teens, has become too casual, increasing the risk for medical repercussions in users.

It was certainly not always this way. Perry noted a palpable change in weed culture both before and after the introduction of Amendment 64 to the Constitution of the State of Colorado, or the legalization of recreational use of marijuana back in 2012.

“There were still a lot of people who still did it before it was legalized, but they tried to hide it a lot, where now, if you go there, I’d be surprised if I didn’t see someone doing it every day,” Perry said.

Although he has a history of being widely exposed to cannabis products, Perry continues to refrain from smoking due to both family history and the awareness of possible medical repercussions.

“It’s mostly because of basketball. A few of my uncles used to be pretty good at basketball, and they started smoking and kinda lost interest in school and activities, and just got super lazy, and I just didn’t want to go down that path, so I stay away from it. It’s mostly health related,” he said.

Although Perry himself does not participate in cannabis related activities, he is familiar with people who regularly participate in such activities, some even coming to social gatherings already high.

“I know one dude who, he was at a party, and he was underage so he wasn’t supposed to have it, and cops showed up, and he dove out of a two-story window, through the glass, and his stomach got all cut up so he has like 56 stitches in his stomach from the glass, and he got arrested for a night, but he was bailed out,” Perry said.

Perry attempts, however, to make sure his friends are not actively smoking while they are hanging out, a task that is becoming more difficult with students’ increasing exposure to marijuana products.

Similarly to Perry, Clay Butler, a junior at CHS, has watched his friends become more interested in alcohol and marijuana, and believes that use of these substances almost always has negative consequences. As someone who does not smoke or drink, Butler often feels like an outlier.

“If you go to a party and you don’t smoke or drink, most likely your friends are gonna be like, ‘okay, we’re not gonna peer pressure you but it’s always gonna be here!’ and they are obviously edging you towards it, they want you to do it, consciously or subconsciously they’re gonna try to push it on you,” Butler said.

At Clayton, Butler noted, drinking and smoking is somewhat normalized.

“I do think every high school has a unique atmosphere about it. What I’ve noticed is that in Clayton, the parties are usually in a space where [drinking and smoking] is not frowned upon by the parents. It’s more like, the parents are trying to create that ‘safe space’ but whenever you have underage drinking, it’s never a good idea and stupid stuff is gonna happen,” Butler said. “I can’t really speak for every high school, just Clayton, but it seems like it’s very well known who does it and which groups do it together, and it’s very open. It’s kind of shocking how Clayton hasn’t had any type of [student-centered] drug prevention program at all, the most we get is a few times a year we talk about it. The people who don’t want to drink are afraid to voice their opinion about.”

To further educate his peers about the negative effects of substance abuse, as well as to show other students (especially underclassmen) that it is okay to avoid smoking and drinking, Butler has joined an initiative called Tri Putting Off Drinking (TRIPOD). Students who join this initiative are taught an hour long lesson by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (NCADA) about substance abuse, which they are then able to teach to their classmates. Butler hopes that this program will help to increase awareness about alcohol and drugs in the Clayton community.

Although some Clayton students share Perry and Butler’s views on marijuana, Jane believes most students have tried smoking at least once.

“Everyone smokes. I do think a lot of people [at Clayton] smoke,” Jane said.

Jane has been smoking marijuana for about a year now, and smokes about once a day during the school year and four to five times a day during the summer. Although she was initially wary about being caught with the illegal substance, smoking and consuming marijuana has become a more casual experience for her.

“When I first started smoking I was so worried, I was so worried about where I was smoking, who I was smoking with, when I was going home,” Jane said. “Now I just like … smoke while I’m walking down the street. I do. I smoke at my house, I smoke anywhere.”

Jane usually purchases about five grams of marijuana once every two weeks, which she smokes in a group with her friends. This costs her at least $100 per month, and she sometimes has to steal money from her parents to cover the price. According to Jane, because of the amount of money that is involved in these transactions, it is typical for dealers to over-price their marijuana, especially if the buyers are freshmen and do not know any better.

“What happens is either you get an unfair price, you get an unfair amount, [the dealer] is like … really bad about meeting you, and then lastly they take forever to respond to you,” she said.

For many dealers at CHS, the process of obtaining and selling drugs has proved dangerous. CHS alum Frank* began dealing at the age of 17, when he met a worker at a Clayton restaurant who offered to help him become a dealer by connecting him with other local adult dealers (he has since stopped dealing).

“I [moved] 2.5 ounces a week,” Frank said. “It’s pretty laid back. Nobody cares except the cops.”

While still dealing, Frank made approximately $500 per week only through drug transactions. Often, dealing put him in threatening situations.

“I was picking up from a dude. Then this guy pulled out a gun [on me]. He told me to give him all my money and weed. I told him to go away,” he said.

Although the gun was not loaded and Frank was unharmed, he was shaken by the altercation.

Other students recount similar experiences. Jason*, a student at CHS, is friends with multiple dealers who have been threatened by suppliers.

“Even in high school … even if you try to screw over like, a high school dealer, they might pull up to your house with a gun. [A dealer I know] pulled a knife on my friend,” Jason said.

The basic understanding of the Clayton drug trade is as follows: a student or recent graduate of Clayton or a neighboring St. Louis high school purchases in larger quantities from adults, and then resells that product to students at Clayton who they are in contact with.

“High school dealers buy from somebody in the area and they’ll ask for a hookup and the high school dealers try to buy in bulk, so typically they’ll buy a couple of ounces maybe so that they can just sell it and they don’t have to continuously keep buying,” Jason said.

Eric Selig, a criminal defense attorney in the St. Louis area, has an awareness of the drug culture because of his career in law. He has sat in with Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents alike due to many of the clients he has represented.

“I’m aware that there’s a cartel in California, and there’s a cartel in Mexico, that do some supplying of drugs to the St. Louis area,” Selig said. “I’m aware of drugs coming in from California, and drugs coming from Colorado, and coming to this area.”

With the changing prohibition surrounding marijuana from state to state, cannabis products are coming into Missouri from places such as Colorado and California, which was not as common 20 years ago before any type of legalization had occurred. Although the sources of marijuana may be changing, there has not been an influx of marijuana being brought into the state of Missouri due to legalization in other states around the country.

“I don’t think there’s an increase, like all of a sudden there’s more marijuana because, let’s say California and Colorado and Washington State, and Washington D.C have legalized recreational marijuana,” Selig said. “I don’t think that has led to more marijuana here. I think it’s possible that that has led to more sources where marijuana comes here from, it takes away some of the marijuana that came here to St. Louis from drug cartels in Mexico. So I don’t think it’s increased the amount, I think that maybe the sources are just a little different.”

Drug smugglers are finding more creative ways to smuggle marijuana products across state lines. While the transportation and distribution of cannabis may be legal in one state, as soon as a border is crossed, a felony could be committed by doing the same action.

“People have been caught coming to St. Louis with trashbags full of marijuana, others with a pickup truck filled with what looked like packages that looked like presents, and bags that look like luggage, and are coming into this area,” Selig said. “And because some or another got caught by the police because they claimed they smelled something, then all of a sudden, they are searching the packages and are finding drugs, and the guys with the trash bags came from Colorado, and the guy with the duffel bags and packages that were wrapped with vacuum-sealed bricks of marijuana, came from California.”

Sergeant Tim Ware, of the St. Louis County Police Bureau of Drug Enforcement, spoke of the legal process these drug traders go through when caught by the police. The St. Louis County Drug Task Force is responsible for investigating possible possessions and/or distributions of illegal substances, such as marijuana.

“Detectives assigned to the St. Louis County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Force use a combination of information/complaints from citizens, the area police precinct, informants or crime trends to initiate criminal investigations for the illegal distribution or possession of controlled substances,” Ware said. “The investigations can result in the execution of state or federal search warrants. After an investigation is completed, all evidence is then turned over to local or federal prosecutors for consideration of charges. Anytime a person is found to be in possession of a controlled substance they are arrested. ”

Missouri follows the trend of other states that are sans marijuana legalization. Ware and Selig both agree that there is no increase in marijuana in Missouri; there is only a change in the sources from which it is brought to the state from.

“Marijuana distribution and possession occurs in the St. Louis area just as much in any other area of the country except maybe states with legalized marijuana,” Ware said. “The amount has not changed [due to legalization in other states], but legalized marijuana has allowed the same people to obtain it in a different location.”

While the Drug Task Force is responsible for marijuana possession investigations, they tend to spend the majority of their time focusing on solving cases involving other, more dangerous drugs.

“In Missouri marijuana is considered a controlled substance,” Ware said. “We investigate these cases like any other. Currently due to the deadly impacts of heroin we have concentrated our investigations to the controlled substances that may be killing more people.”

The CHS Administration is aware that drug use, and especially consumption of marijuana, is a problem among high school students. However, according to Assistant Principal Ryan Luhning, finding marijuana in a student’s possession while at school is rare.

“I’ve been here 12 years, seven years of being in charge of discipline, and through our searches, we’ve only ever found small amounts of marijuana on campus, or prescription drugs, but for the most part, it’s usually not on campus. Clayton is a wonderful place, and we give you guys a ton of freedom with the open campus. I think most kids would be smart enough to go someplace else to do something like that, if they were to make a drug exchange, or if they were going to use, they would make sure it doesn’t come back on campus. Even the kids we have caught while under the influence, they usually don’t have anything on their person at the time,” Luhning said.

Although the School District lacks jurisdiction over drug deals or drug use that occurs outside of school, it does have the ability to perform searches if there is reasonable suspicion that a student has taken drugs unto the campus.

“If someone says they have a tip, that they saw someone smoking in the bathroom, okay, so if you saw this, if you visibly saw this, that would give me enough reasonable suspicion to search the locker, search the student, search the vehicle … that’s all you really need is reasonable suspicion, is what the courts give,” Luhning said.

If a student is caught with drugs in their possession, they can be given a maximum of 10 days of suspension. This suspension can be shortened if the student participates in a screening at the NCADA. Expulsion, according to Luhning, is very rare and always a last resort.

“I’ve been here 12 years, there’s been one expulsion. I think in the previous 100 years, there has only been one expulsion. That would be a last resort for the School District of Clayton. It’s very rare to expel anyone. The Collaborative School is always an option for us.”

In Luhning’s previous experiences working at Vianney, a private school, it was typical for students to be expelled if they could not meet the academic and behavior standards that the school set. In this sense, students at Vianney lacked the rights that Clayton students have.

“So a lot different in terms of rights for public school students versus private school students. I like the fact that we allow you guys to be young people who learn and grow, and if you make mistakes, we try to help you through that. We’re not going to expel, we’re going to try to get you help with an alcohol or drug problem with the NCADA to rehabilitate and help people, not just shoo them off to the side. It’s just different, those two types of experiences in my administrative career.”

Although national attention on the use of marijuana has increased in recent years, data from the health surveys distributed by CHS indicate that marijuana use is declining, Luhning said.

“National data says that teenagers these days are the safest. They use less drugs, they use less alcohol, school’s more important to them, than any generation before. It looks to me like things are getting better, you know, statistically. My eye test tells me that there is still a lot of marijuana use, so it’s hard to tell what the statistics and data says. I do think this generation is more knowledgeable on alcohol, drugs, those types of things.”