Lower Merion Students Filmed Drinking, Doing Drugs

Lower Merion School District officials say they saw students drinking and using drugs on a YouTube video series called “I’m Shmacked.”

Current and former Lower Merion School District students have been seen allegedly drinking alcohol and using drugs in YouTube videos posted online, district officials told parents this week.

The alleged underage drinking and drug use was on a YouTube video series called “I’m Shmacked.” The Twitter and Facebook pages promoting the movie called “I’m Shmacked” describe the project as a film “documenting the experience of a weekend at 20 of the best and biggest universities around the United States intertwined with a book and a Web site being pitched to major publishers and studios.”

Harriton High School Principal Sean Hughes sent a letter home to parents this week alerting them to the fact that one of these videos, which he says is no longer online, included footage of LMSD high school students.

“The activities depicted in the video are reprehensible and cause for great concern,” Hughes writes. “They include binge drinking, marijuana use, substance-induced violence and several dangerous situations involving drugs and alcohol in vehicles.”

According to Hughes the film appears to have been recorded last summer. He says that the district is individually notifying the parents of the students in the video, and said that officials shared the video with police.

Hughes promises that in the cases where the district has power and authority, they will use it against the guilty students.

“Students that participate in school sports or other competitive activities may face a team suspension even if they haven’t had a sip of beer, but are found to have been ‘in the room’ at a party where alcohol is served,” Hughes writes. “On the line are college acceptances, scholarships and personal reputation. It’s simply not worth the risk.”

Though Hughes says the “I’m Shmacked” video of the Lower Merion students is no longer online, videos of local college students at Temple University and Penn State drinking and taking illegal drugs is still available online.

"I'm Shmacked" Temple University:

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