The big move South to university opened my world.
One night you’re sitting at home with your parents, half-listening to them hammer in their values and opinions at the dinner table. Next, you’re living in close quarters with a few hundred frothy eighteen year olds. People from different families and areas happen to give exposure to differences in culture, beliefs and morals. Who would've thunk it.
This all came to a head around one cornerstone of the Otago experience: partying.
There are few opportunities in life quite like O-Week – a sanctioned, one-week bender where my parents' rules were at least a thousand kilometres away and held no weight on my freshly adult shoulders. The drug of choice is of course alcohol – but this was only the start of my exposure to drugs at uni, from that moment all the way now to my postgraduate days.
As my world became more than just my old high school drama, I realised quickly how different everyone's exposure to drug use was. Whether it was different situations or different people taking them, it was a constant flipflop between judging and admiring.
A couple years back, I walked into my mate’s flat on Castle with the confidence only a second-year can have during Flo Week. I was immediately met with the sight of a huddle of boys, racking up lines on the kitchen bench. It was the first time I’d seen hard drugs taken so casually in front of me. My previous exposure had been entirely negative – school assemblies, police talks and relatives always telling us to say no to people offering them. Harold the Giraffe telling me jail would be the destination I’d reach if I went down the drugs route. My high school, despite being described by many in my town as “a bit scody”, would still never glamorise drug use.
But here it wasn't desperation, or dysfunction, or a problem. It was boys in their Sunday best, preing for the function.
The longer I spent at uni, the more fascinated I became by the relationship between wealth and drugs. I had grown up with the narrative that drug users were jobless and lived a life full of illegal. But I was always aware that addiction was a disease – what I hadn't yet grasped was how differently that disease is perceived depending on who has it.
The media I was exposed to growing up shaped my ignorance. The Wine Mum stereotype of a wealthy lady knocking back multiple bottles of wine a week was portrayed to me as “stress relief”. A working-class woman drinking the same amount is far less likely to be treated as quirky or in need of an outlet. She’s seen as a problem.
Our institutions reinforce this. In a lot of prestigious jobs, ‘hard drugs’ like cocaine are very normalised. Think the Big 4 accounting firms, or big law – it turns out that The Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t too inaccurate. When you earn enough money to fund a drug habit, without sacrificing rent, food, or image, it becomes invisible. Wealth just adds a nice shiny layer and the slogan “work hard, play hard”. Expensive drugs are glamorous. Coke, Ket, MDMA – high price tags, high-status party scenes. There’s a wealth gap even within drug culture. The substances most associated with affluence are treated as indulgences. The ones associated with poverty are treated as moral failures.
I found Uni culture was far more lenient on drugs than expected. My mates and I have joked at times that weed basically feels legal in North Dunedin. Most passers-by on Dundas or Leith will turn a blind eye at a random whiff of weed wafting from a flat. I would not expect such a calm reaction from the people from my hometown.
Even when it comes to the academic side of uni, drug use is normalised to an extent. Buying ritalin to help you “lock in” for exams is a common experience for many. Prescription medication becomes a study aid to some, a way to make a bit of cash for others. It's not framed as abuse, it's seen as productivity; as an extra level of dedication to your studies.
Residential colleges were particularly eye-opening. When else are you spending a year straight partying (and occasionally going to lectures) with hundreds of other people who have never drunk without supervision? Your mate who got way too fucked up in town every week without fail? That’s alcoholism. Even if you rebrand it as being a wild-one on a night out, just getting
“engrossed into student culture”, that’s still alcoholism. But because it's happening in a space filled predominantly with middle and upper-income students, it’s funny. It’s character-building. It’s just what you do.
Music festivals tend to follow a similar pattern. If you can afford the petrol or flights, accommodation, tickets and all other expenses – chances are $100 on drugs will not trigger much worry. I’ve attended festivals where security barely checked pockets. The Class A baggie shoved in my undies felt less scrutiny than a snuck-in RTD. These environments are expensive by design. The cost of entry filters who is there, and therefore who is policed.
I can admit I’m part of this cycle of no-consequence. These environments have allowed me to try Ritalin, MDMA, acid, ketamine and other substances with little fear of genuine consequences. When the risks feel social rather than legal, experimentation becomes a hobby.
Taking drugs is a personal choice. There are clear factors that make it attractive – euphoria, escape, even connection. But there are obvious negatives – illegality, addiction and health risks. Through this experience though, an awareness of who you are around, and whether the consequences would be the same for your mates in another situation is worth having a think about.
In Aotearoa, conviction rates for drug possession disproportionately affect people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Police discretion often plays differently depending on postcode, presentation, and perceived potential of the individual. A wealthy student with a one-off charge is “promising.” Someone from a poorer background is a "repeat risk”. With systematic inequalities across our justice system, drug users are at the mercy of different consequences, purely based on the life they were born in.
Despite what you may have been led to believe, drugs have made it into every facet of Aotearoa society. They may be one of the few universal threads across class lines. The difference is not who uses them – it’s who is punished for it.
Whether it's a glass of wine in a mansion, or a powerade bottle bong behind a shed, substance addiction can happen to anyone. But accountability, stigma and the state's response are not universal.
Addiction is a disease. But privilege determines how comfortably you're allowed to have it.
If you have concerns about your own, or others alcohol and drug usage, you can call the Alcohol and Drug Helpline on 0800 787 797 or text 8681, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to speak with a trained counsellor. All calls are free and confidential.
