Since Justin, a 15-year-old high school freshman, tried marijuana on his birthday two years ago, he has smoked almost every day, several times a day, he said.
“If I smoke a dull cigarette, I get chills after that,” he said one recent morning at a corner snack bar near his school, Design Academy. and Building the Bronx. “I wouldn’t stress about anything at all.”
Another boy passed by and handed two glass tubes of smoked flowers. Many students were smoking across the street in the doorway and on stoop. In another corner, a cigarette shop frequented by kids in backpacks and uniforms opened about half an hour before the first bell.
Although it has long been common for some teenagers to smoke marijuana, teachers and students say that more and more young students are smoking throughout the day and at school.
There is little accurate data on cannabis use in children, and the information that is available can sometimes present a contradictory picture. Disciplinary data from the city’s education department reflects a 10% increase in alcohol and drug-related offenses this year compared to 2019. But a survey by the city showed marijuana use by students. Teenagers fell in 2021, the same year the state legalized recreational marijuana, to the lowest level recorded since the question was added to the survey in 1997.
However, more than two dozen students and teachers at public, private and charter schools across the city said in interviews that some classrooms are being disrupted as many students arrive late and study hard. much.
They say that with the proliferation of unlicensed smoking shops and the availability of vape pens and edible products, cannabis has never been more accessible and discreet. They relayed narratives of students smoking e-cigarettes with teachers’ backs turned, bathrooms and stairs turning into smoking rooms, and the smell of weed wafting through the school hallways.
Teachers at the city’s high schools say it’s rare to catch students smoking, and because smoking is becoming increasingly easy, reports will be based on more ambiguous judgments about smell and behavior of students.
America Billy, 44, who has taught at a public high school in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, said: “We’re trying in vain to hold back like an unstoppable wave. She says it’s difficult to tell if a student has insomnia because of lack of sleep, family stress or drugs.
In December, a former principal, April McKoy, described in a letter how student use of marijuana had spiraled out of control during the last two years she was in charge of Technical High School. , City Polytechnic Architecture and Technology in Brooklyn.
“It appears that an increasing number of people are using without knowing the origins, effects or consequences of early cannabis use,” Ms. McKoy said in the letter, adding that the students returned from college. translates as “sad, isolated and trying to cope.”
Freshmen were selling marijuana to each other, and she said she witnessed a smoke shop selling marijuana to 14-year-olds with police officers nearby. In another, she sent four students to the hospital because they fell ill from eating contaminated food, she said.
Officials say the rise of unlicensed smoking shops, which the city says can reach 1,500, could be a driving factor in marijuana use among children.
Gale Brewer, a city councilmember, says that although she counted fewer than 10 of them in her borough on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in September, there were 64 in March. Some school administrators have complained to her about merchants selling joints and flavored candies as well as concentrates and high-potency e-cigarettes to students.
“We all said we needed social workers, we needed psychologists, we needed mental health support in schools,” she said. But dealing with tobacco stores that sell to children “is not on the list.”
Mayor Eric Adams has vowed to crack down on unlicensed smoking shops, although he has yet to take action. In February, his administration filed a nuisance relief lawsuit targeting several stores where police said underage aide officers could purchase marijuana. At the same time, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has sent letters to the stores threatening to evict them, but so far his office has not initiated any proceedings.
In Albany, state legislators passed budget legislation in April that expands the powers of the state’s cannabis regulators and tax authorities to close unlicensed shops and impose hefty fines. for illegal sales. Adams’ office praised the measure, but called on the state to give more enforcement powers to the city to rein in illegal smoking shops.
Jenna Lyle, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said schools offer a range of programs to address and prevent substance abuse in students, including school counselors. But last year, there were only 280 professionals for the city’s 1,600 schools, Chalkbeat reported.
Esther Lelievre, a cannabis activist who organizes educational seminars at schools at community centers, says many students who use marijuana say they have started vaping nicotine, a phenomenon that was on the rise before the pandemic. She says that very few students she has worked with have purchased marijuana from smoke shops. Most get it from friends who have reached out to a dealer or home cannabis.
At the Bronx Documentation Center, a nonprofit photo gallery near Justin’s school, students in their journalism program began raising awareness about marijuana use among children after witnessing changes in peers.
They mapped all the tobacco shops and schools in the neighborhood with pins, and connected the closest ones with rubber bands. Showing the map during a recent evening class, Cara-Star Tyner, 15, noted that one of the rubber bands didn’t stretch.
“That’s how close it is,” she said.
One of the shops, Puff Puff Pass 1, is visible through their office window. On a recent morning, The Times observed two teenagers wearing backpacks and school uniforms making purchases in a store, then entering a high school building. Two days later, a man who identified himself as the store’s owner, Mike Alramada, 35, said he did not sell cigarettes or marijuana to students. As he spoke, he was interrupted by teenagers ringing the doorbell to get inside the store, which also had some drinks and other grocery items.
Journalism students say they are disappointed in the adults who run their schools, cities and smoking shops, and they hope that bringing attention to the issue will ultimately spur the authorities. act.
“I hope that the adults realize that they are not doing their job,” said Alexa Pacheco, who studied at a Catholic school in the Bronx. “A teenager shouldn’t worry about their friends using drugs.”
Lauren McCarthy contribution report.
