Loyola College's student newspaper The Greyhound is running a series looking at cocaine use at the private Jesuit school in North Baltimore.

Today's installation deals with a college-administered student survey, which seems to suggest that Loyola students perceive cocaine use is more prevalent than it likely is.

The 2006 survey "showed 82 students out of 1,005 surveyed admitted using cocaine as frequently as only a few times per year, up to three or more times a week. On the other hand, student perception of cocaine use was much higher, with 540 saying the typical student used cocaine a few times a year or more," the Greyhound reported.

The first part of "Cocaine Culture," published last month, offers some insight into the personality of a Loyola druggie:

"He leans over his coffee table, plugs one nostril, and snorts in a line of crushed Percocet through a rolled-up dollar bill ... Five minutes later the user receives a phone call and within 15 minutes a fellow student --a dealer-- enters the room. Twenty dollars is handed to the dealer as they sit down at the table to measure up the half gram of cocaine to be sold ... 'I bought an 8-ball [3.5 grams of cocaine] about a month ago,' he says. 'That [expletive] was gone in two days. I killed a [gram] this Saturday alone.'"

Riveting stuff, though the story relies heavily on unnamed sources, so readers might take it with a gram of salt.

One minor quibble. In a description of drug activity on nearby York Road, the authors write: "Dealers are looking for buyers on the street while buyers are on the corners stretching their arms out as to hail for a cab, but tapping their fingers downward, indicating their want of drugs."

Pointing your fingers downward is just the Baltimore way of hailing a cab, whether illegal "hack" or licensed taxi.