Izi Schunick, age 18

Cambridge, MD

Peer pressure is the hardest thing about being a teenager, Some people might say that I'm the peer pressure one... when I was younger I was like, "Come on let's do this, let's go do this." Now that I've gotten older everybody's into more drugs and everything. And they're like, "Come on," and I'm like, why did I do that when I was younger, make people do something they didn't want to do?

Like with Ecstasy, I didn't want to do it at first 'cause I heard it could kill you and everything, but my friend she did 'em and she was like, "Come on, ya got to do 'em." So I did. I've snorted heroin (that made me feel really bad), snorted Ritalin, done coke for like three months nonstop. And then I realized I needed to stop–I made myself stop. There's one drug I will do again and that's acid. I love that drug.

I'd say my fantasy future life is like everybody else's. Have a big house, lots of cars, be able to just stop everything I'm doing and take a cruise for like a whole year, around the world or something.

In reality, in the future I'll probably have a steady job, probably have my own apartment but things will probably be very, very ghetto. Like, how we describe ghetto here is Oodles of Noodles. You have Oodles of Noodles and Kool Aid. That's it, that's about all. This is just how it sets in around here. If you stay here, you know for a fact, coming from where I grew up you will have a ghetto apartment...

The biggest thing that changed my life was when I dropped out of school in tenth grade... If I was in school it would be so much easier to get into college and get the grants and the scholarships; so much easier than now.