Fast Times at Clairemont High in San Diego 1973

November 21, 1973

Clairemont High School. TV 8 Action News was on campus to talk to students about a raid that occurred on November 9th. 27 students were arrested—most of them students—on drug charges. San Diego police officers involved in the raid said it was in reaction to numerous complaints from neighbors about “blatant marijuana smoking and malicious vandalism.” A student Gene Gleeson spoke to said “if the police would have come out here and asked the people nicely if they were hurting peoples’ property, and said just to leave you know, we’re not making any arrests—just leave the property and go somewhere else to get stoned, and then maybe the people would have done it.”
Cameron Crowe's debut screenwriting effort, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, grew out of a book he wrote while posing for one year undercover as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California.