How to deal with Peer Pressure in a positive way?

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Okay so we all learned in elementary school that when it comes to peer pressure, having the strength to say 'No' is very important. But what if you have TOO MUCH strength to say no? Because whenever I say 'No' to peer pressure, I say it in a way that makes me sound very rude, arrogant, and condescending. I don't really know how to say it firmly enough to get people off my back without having to be so rude about it. Because if I say it politely, then they don't take me seriously and they'll continue to pressure me. If someone could help me with this, I'd really appreciate it.

Since I was a kid, I've always hung around in the heavy metal, artistic crowd. I've always had to deal with the problem of the majority of my friends thinking illegal drugs are okay and making fun of me for refusing to use drugs or be around them. I'm older now, so it's not much of a problem.

When I was a kid, I'd say, "Nah, I'm not into that." If I was at a party I might or might not privately tell who I was with that if drugs came out I would have to leave. Sometimes I didn't feel comfortable doing that so I stayed quiet. Then whenever someone started doing drugs I'd either leave the area or go home. It was never worth making myself uncomfortable.

So my advice is to stay low key about it, and try to avoid justifying why you're not into whatever it is. When people ask you to justify yourself, they're trying to argue with you. It's not worth an argument and their minds won't change.

That's good advice. Thank you I'll try my best

I don't think there's an easy solution to this - it's difficult for NT teens/kids as well. The good news is that people tend to grow out of peer pressuring others by their late 20s (or maybe I just stopped hanging out with those kinds of people?). As you get the freedom to choose your own social groups (rather than just the people who go to school/work with you), you can pick people who are similar to you. Then it becomes less important to try to make everyone agree on things, since the people agree on the most important things. There are also many social circles where drug use is minimal (or private) and drinking is done in moderation. As you get older, the people who are still into heavy drug use become people you really do not want to spend time with anyway...it becomes a sadder and sadder state of affairs.

I also think that peer pressure is usually one or two loud jerks trying to boss everyone else around. Most of the other people don't really care. At a certain point those loud jerks wind up being the ones on the outside-or in their own sad social groups. There are many people that would rather just relax with their friends and don't care if some people don't drink or whatever.

If it's about drugs tell them your parents test you and said if you have a positive test they will send you to military school.

That will work.

Or you could tell them no, you sell your clean urine to others who are being tested and you aren't going to screw up your money.

That will work too.

I was like that in secondary school (and still am). I never felt pressured into conforming for the sake of conformity, nor being agreeable to cater to unreasonable people. When I said 'no', I never felt like lying or explaining my reasoning.

I didn't have many friends, but the friends I did have were of high quality. I didn't demand much from them, and they didn't demand much from me. The disagreements were over thoughts rather than actions. The arguments remained civil and never turned into fights. They weren't the violent dumb sport-jocks nor were they drug 'experimenters' with criminal tendencies. Most of them were the kind of kids who would play MtG and Warhammer 40K.

If some dumb/bad people think you are rude, arrogant or condescending; so be it. It helps weed out the sociopaths and narcissists. This isn't the way for everyone, but it was the way for me.