Correct, Dylan started dabbling in smoking cigars, heavy liquor and shooters type drinks in Sophomore year ‘96-97. In his journal entry dated 7/23/97, Dylan laments the old days with Zach “we did cigars, drinking, sabotaging to houses, EVERYTHING.” Rebel Missions were most active in the ‘96-’97 time period though Eric only mentions dabbling in heavy liquor and smoking cigars in the Mission accounts. I can see how my lackadaisical punctuation in the previous ask might have caused confusion.
Dylan didn’t try cigarettes and weed in August ‘97. The Diversion questionnaire is specifically asking him about marijuana and drug use. Dylan offers that he tried marijuana in Aug ‘97 with his brother out of curiosity. Dylan most certainly had to have been smoking cigarettes before Aug ‘97, and I see it as a natural progression of him messing around with smoking stogies with the boys on Rebel Missions to next moving on to smoking cigarettes. By the time Dylan was answering questions on the Diversion File in March ‘98, it seems likely that he was already a fairly regular cigarette smoker. The diversion questionnaire does not seem to ask him about cigarette use which is odd as it’s also a substance but that’s probably because back in the nineties cigarettes wasn’t much up for consideration as far as addicting substances. There is more awareness about that today. I’d say that not only were his parents shocked that their son had used alcohol and smoked pot but that they also had no clue at this time that he was already a fairly adapt menthol cigarette smoker if only part time on school grounds or in the company of friends.