Between September 1 to September 6, the Washington University Police Department referred 18 students to the Judicial Administrator for drug offenses, in response to four separate incidents.
Only 10 cases of drug offenses were reported to the Judicial Administrator in the entirety of last year.
“I would say that there has been an enormous increase in recent years of people being blatant about their drug use,” said Jill Stratton, associate director of Residential Life. “If students are not upholding the community’s expectations, we need to address that.”
WUPD Chief Don Strom also noted the increased drug incidents.
“I don’t remember there being this many incidents last year,” said Strom, “But is that to say that last year we were drug free? No.”
Strom explained the recent string in drug arrests as a result of coincidence and complaints from Residential Life concerning students using drugs more obviously and in more open spaces. Stratton said that the cooperation between Residential Life and WUPD is not new, but continuing.
“We want to partner with the police to deal with a lot of issues-safety issues for example,” Stratton said. “And if there are illegal activities going on, we will call the police for back-up.”
Residential Advisors are required to fill out a discipline report each time they find students using drugs, but less serious cases can be handled by an RA and RCD. RAs and RCDs do not refer all cases to WUPD or the Judicial Administrator.
The first drug offense incident was reported on September 1, when an RA smelled marijuana smoke and called the police. WUPD found seven students in a room in Danforth Residential Hall with drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Foot-patrols found three students smoking marijuana behind Park Dorm on September 4, and on September 5, foot-patrols found two students, both of whom were among the three involved in the incident the previous night, smoking marijuana behind Shepley Hall.
A search at the police station revealed that one of the two students was in possession of a controlled substance, which the student “self-identified” as a felony drug, according to Strom. WUPD issued felony possession charges to the student and released the individual pending application of warrants and crime lab tests to identify the drug.
The last incident occurred on September 6 when WUPD observed six students smoking marijuana in Parking Lot #59. All offenses were referred to the Judicial Administrator.
WUPD has not reported any drug offences since September 6.

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2001 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News. 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.