Some of you will help kill families in Colombia this weekend. So says the U.S. government (probably the ultimate culprit of the deaths) in its anti-drug commercials. The good news is that this sort of War on Drugs has not made it to WU. When it comes to drug use on the Hilltop and on the South 40, both the Office of Residential Life and the Washington University Police Department have shown a reasonable respect for privacy and have not lost their heads.

Nice job…

“Yes, they have,” goes another opinion. During the research for this column, several students expressed concerns about the way the WU police and Residential Life enforce the university’s drug policy (which bans drugs from campus). The ranks of critics are not limited to the potential targets of drug enforcement. They also include those who claim to have never touched a joint, but who fear that drug busters treat junkies unfairly and encroach on everyone else’s liberties, to boot.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people are serving oodles of time for possession of weed and of more racy substances. Here, though, the police have busted students only twice since January, according to its statistics. Don Strom, chief of WUPD, is not fooling himself. “I think we probably have a lot of drugs on our campus,” he said. But most consumption takes place in the privacy of students’ rooms or in nooks and crannies around campus that the officers miss. Nor do they try too hard to sniff them out. “I don’t get the impression that our officers are spending that much time on the drug stuff,” Strom said. Alcohol, which is far more prevalent and immediately dangerous than most drugs making rounds on the South 40, gets far more police attention.

And nor do the campus cops burst in on every suspected stash. “We treat the residential rooms on our campus using the same standard we’d use in public setting,” says Strom. He adds that, except in the case of emergencies, his officers won’t go rummaging through dorms unless accompanied by Residential Life. Even then, they use the “probable cause” standard in deciding whether to execute a search, even though technically, they could do so on a whim. Strom denied that the police would act merely on an anonymous phone call, as one column in Student Life claimed last year.

When the bust does happen, first-time offenders usually get off with having to do some creative project. But not always-and this is what troubles critics of WU drug enforcement, including Ari Elias-Bachrach, president of the WU Students for Sensible Drug Policy (WUSSDP). Some residential advisors may forget the first offense; others may call the cops. “ResLife enforces policies arbitrarily,” Ari notes. “It depends on who catches you.” Justin X. Carroll, dean at Residential Life, responds that, with over 100 RAs, strict consistency is impossible. Indeed, it’s probably unwelcome-RAs have better knowledge of the situation than other WU officials, and should make the call. Ari says he does appreciate the flexibility WU grants to RAs. He wishes, though, that Residential Life would stress to its RAs that when it comes to first-time drug offenders, RAs have the authority to deal with them without involving the cops.

First-time offenders may be at the mercy of their RA, but dealers have it worse. Strom insists he would refer a dealer’s case for prosecution outside of WU. That’s because “there’s a whole series of risk factors associated with selling drugs on campus,” including possibility of violence. Still, the administration and WUPD could probably cut them some slack. Dealers are students who do care about their future (enough to have earned a place at WU); prosecution could ruin their lives. This is one policy that needs a revamp.

…but you could do better

Overall, though, WUPD and Residential Life approach drug enforcement with admirable sanity. Why, then, do some students see the administration as “the Man”? Well, few do-but they are shrill. Ari notes that a lot of students don’t care about drug enforcement until they get busted. If so, when they do, they would recount the ordeal generously.

An even more likely reason for the perceived unfairness is the arcane code of ethics that does not allow WU officials to comment on individual cases. Carroll says it’s frustrating when busted students write columns about their cases in Student Life, presenting, he believes, half-truths-and he may not clarify the facts because of the privacy considerations. The student ends up having the only public word on the matter. This is unreasonable. If a student brings up his own case in the press, the administration should be able to comment on it, or it could see its reputation unfairly wither.

Finally, the administration could take the WUSSDP’s main suggestion and elaborate on its drug policy. Right now, the policy consists of a few vaguely phrased paragraphs in the Course Listings. Residential Life and the judicial administrator should set up general guidelines for responding to different types of drugs and different situations in which they are used. Just so students know what to expect, and don’t suspect arbitrariness-like in Colombia.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 8th, 2002 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.