We apparently have a cheese problem here in Dallas.

I take it that some slangy drug name and that the youth of Dallas aren't mainlining gruyere.

ION, Koolaid Pickles - I like pickles. . . but. . .

Good to know, tommyrot. I'll never put it into practice, except perhaps fictionally.

There was all sorts of stuff floating around the schools, but it wasn't really in your face or anything, so the community was probably in a fair amount of denial about what did go on. Well, except for the occasional gang fight.

I was surprised to learn, years later, that my childhood friend had been a pretty big dealer and, um, manufacturer? He very lucky because they used him to nail the ringleader, a chemistry grad student, but basically kept him off the books as long as he cleaned up his act (he met the student when he interned for the guy. Who knew those high school internship programs could be so lucrative?!)

I take it that some slangy drug name and that the youth of Dallas aren't mainlining gruyere.

Yep. [link]

I was going to link to an article, but I love seeing all those headlines. They make me laugh. "'Cheese' crisis runs deep "

ETA: Ok. This one's pretty good too "Local officials prepare for 'cheese' arrival"

I don't know of any drugs done at my high school. I wouldn't really know of many done outside my year, and inside my year there were maybe five girls who might have been into that stuff.

Our scandals were more like who was dating the Art teacher, and if it was right that a student could star in a film she wasn't old enough to see.

A few years before I attended my (private boarding) high school, some rich kids gathered cash, flew to Columbia, and tried to smuggle cocaine home in a hollow surf board. It made 60 Minutes. (And, oh look, someone is making a movie: [link] )

There were some pot smokers and assorted hallucinogen ingesters, and a few reputed coke heads, when I was there, but since getting caught with drugs got you kicked out, less than you'd think. I'm sure a lot of people smoked pot at home/in the summer, though. Rich kids with money and connections.

I hate calling in to work a month into a new job, but I don't see ay choices.

Calling in apocalypsed is going to fall on the totally reasonable and understandable side of things, I suspect.

There were drugs in my high school in the 80s/90s, and in my sister's in the 70s. For more datapoints.

The 'cheese' thing made me flash to this classic Monty Python sketch: [link]

CAPTION: 'THE WORLD AROUND US'
Photo of newspaper headlines: Pop Stars In Mouse Scandal; Peer Faces Rodent Charges. A man in a mouse skin running into police station with bag over head.

CAPTION: 'THE MOUSE PROBLEM'
Cut to a policeman leading a man in mouse costume into a police station. Photo of headline: Mouse Clubs On Increase.
Cut to: photos of neon signs of clubs: Eek Eek Club; The Little White Rodent Room; Caerphilly A Go-Go.
Cut to studio: ordinary grey-suited linkman.
Linkman: Yes. The Mouse Problem. This week 'The World Around Us' looks at the growing social phenomenon of Mice and Men. What makes a man want to be a mouse.
Interviewer, Harold Voice, sitting facing a confessor. The confessor is badly lit and is turned away from camera.
Man: (very slowly and painfully) Well it's not a question of wanting to be a mouse... it just sort of happens to you. All of a sudden you realize... that's what you want to be.
Interviewer: And when did you first notice these... shall we say... tendencies?
Man: Well... I was about seventeen and some mates and me went to a party, and, er... we had quite a lot to drink... and then some of the fellows there ... started handing ... cheese around ... and well just out of curiosity I tried a bit ... and well that was that.
Interviewer: And what else did these fellows do?
Man: Well some of them started dressing up as mice a bit ... and then when they'd got the costumes on they started ... squeaking.
Interviewer: Yes. And was that all?
Man: That was all.
Interviewer: And what was your reaction to this?
Man: Well I was shocked. But, er... gradually I came to feel that I was more at ease ... with other mice.

I know there was alcohol, and I assume there was pot and maybe a little coke at my rural high school in the 80's/90's-- but apparantly when a family friend was going to the same school in the late 90's, students were dropping acid in study hall.