Dylan Morril
Equinox Staff
The number of drug-related violations in residential facilities has gone up from 180 in 2009 to 207 in 2010, a 15 percent increase. The vast majority of these violations were for marijuana use.
The Keene State College chapter of Students for a Sensible Drug policy (SSDP), a group that advocates for a new approach to drug and alcohol policy, is on the case.
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The group’s Facebook page is currently full of references to ending the war on drugs, which it says causes more problems than it fixes. Examples of posts include a documentary called “The Cost of The War on Drugs,” and a post created to discuss the active supporting of five new marijuana bills which were recently proposed by the New Hampshire Legislature.
The group also handed out flyers at Friday’s student involvement fair. One of the flyers made a stark and interesting comparison between the amount of homicides during prohibition and the war on drugs.
Homicides increased in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s from 8,640 per year in 1963 to 20,710 in 1974. SSDP relates this in large part to the war on drugs and the subsequent criminal activity that has come with it. “We want to end the war on drugs,” Brian Rabadeau, a member of the KSC chapter of SSDP, said.
SSDP is an international grassroots advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. It boasts hundreds of chapters at colleges and universities all over the world, but mostly domestically. It was started in 1998 by students from Rochester Institute of Technology and George Washington University.
The Keene State College chapter of SSDP was founded just six months ago in August by Jake Russell, a student at Keene State. “There was a chapter here two years ago, but it kind of died out,” Russell said. “So I started it back up again.”
Since August the group has grown fast. It now has close to 25 members and has attended an international conference in Boston and participated in a “Chalk the Police” event, in which the group chalked statements on Appian Way and in front of the Keene Police Department Headquarters.
Some examples of the chalked statements include “Badges don’t grant extra rights,” “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty,” “Who watches the watchmen,” and “Do you feel safe around KPD?” The statements were at best mildly rhetorical, but could most likely be seen as blatantly incendiary by someone confused about SSDP’s mission.
The chalk was washed away within hours.
“I had friends telling me they [Campus Safety officers] are looking for you,” Russell said. “I mean, the Pride club did the same exact thing and their chalk was left for weeks, but ours was gone within hours,” Russell said, citing a fall event in which the KSC Pride club, in a similar fashion, chalked inspirational statements on Appian Way.
SSDP’s biggest initiative so far has been the implementation of a Good Samaritan Policy. The policy states that any student worried about another students health due to possible overdose of drug or alcohol can call Campus Safety without being subject to punitive sanctions,” (which is another word for punishments). Instead the students who called for helped will be free to go. Importantly, the student who needed medical attention would be “required to undergo educational sanctions and counseling sessions.” The current punishments for drug and alcohol use are much more costly, ambiguous, and scary.
Scary enough, Russell thinks, that students will be discouraged to call for help when they most need it. “Kids won’t call 911 because they’re so afraid that ‘I’m gonna lose housing’ or ‘I’m gonna get kicked out of school.’”
An increase in drug use on campus can possibly mean an increase in drug-related accidents, making the proposed Good Samaritan policy even more relevant to the discussion of Keene State College’s drug and alcohol policy.
Interestingly, a new bi-anuual study done by the State Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education found that nearly one in three New Hampshire high school students uses marijuana, a rate that suggests the problem will continue to get worse when these students graduate and make their way to college (from the Keene Sentinel).
Amanda Warman, the director of Campus Safety at Keene State College, is skeptical of the necessity of a Good Samaritan Policy in fighting drug and alcohol abuse.
“In spirit, it is a good policy, and I want to affect change, but in most cases if somebody calls, they don’t get written up.”
Out of the 20 incidents last semester in which Campus Safety was called and a student needed to be transported in an ambulance for alcohol or drug abuse, Warman believes the students who called Campus Safety did not get in any trouble almost all the time.
In other words, the policy is unnecessary as it will change very little.
However, Russell believes the right time to adopt a Good Samaritan Policy is always now. “We’re gonna try to do it by the end of the year,” Russell said. “I mean, is it gonna take a kid dying before change will happen?”
Dylan Morrill can be contacted at dmorril1@ksc.mailcruiser.com.