Drug Arrests Rising on College Campuses

DRUG USE TRENDS November 1995

Campus officials are reporting that the number of drug violations by college students is rising, but they are unsure what is driving the trend (Ben Gose, "The Drug Problem," Chronicle of Higher Education, July 21, 1995, p. A30).

A survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that drug violations increased 34 percent in 1993. Drug use among college students has been rising, but not at a rate that would account for the dramatic increase in drug violations. Use of marijuana among college students, for example, only increased from 29 percent in 1991 to 31 percent in 1993, according to a survey of 1,500 students by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

On the campus of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, there was only one student charged with a drug violation between 1991 and 1993. In 1994, however, 11 students were caught with drugs, and five were in the spring semester of 1995. University officials say students are tired of their peers' drug use and are phoning in more tips to campus police.

Shaun Nanavati, who graduated from Bucknell this year, has another explanation. He says that officials at Bucknell are using any excuse to enter dormitory rooms. When he was caught with three bags of marijuana in his room in March, the college required him to complete 20 hours of community service and the court put him on probation.

Officials on other campuses attribute the increase in violations to crackdowns on drug use. "We wanted to send a message to students that we do not condone illegal drug abuse and use on our campus," Donn Hopkins, chief of police at Colorado State University, said of statistics showing an increase in drug arrests from 11 in 1992 to 55 in 1993. University of Michigan campus police claims to now arrest about 50 people, mostly non-students, every year at the annual Ann Arbor "Hash Bash." For more than 20 years, police only occasionally handed out citations at the event.

On other campuses, police say the increase in drug violation statistics is a result of increased reporting by security and dorm administrators as a result of the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990.