My DS was accepted last year, thank god he rejected them, I can’t imagine what current freshman parents must be thinking, nor prospective freshman parents, why would you send your children to Wesleyan. How awful.
The history of MDMA is absolutely fascinating. It’s truly been a “designer drug” since the beginning. It was popularized and distributed by therapists and professors. It then became big in Europe.
My generation thinks the war on drugs is an absolute joke (which it is). There is so much time spent fighting things like pot that we know not to be harmful that it makes young people suspicious of other warnings.
Not saying it’s right or wrong, it just is.
This CNN story names the 4 students arrested in the wake of the overdoses.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/24/us/wesleyan-university-molly-hospitalizations/index.html#
And another CNN piece about Molly, what it does and why it’s dangerous.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/22/health/9-things-molly-drug/
This could happen on any college campus.
Ecstasy was around when I was in college in the mid-80’s. It wasn’t actually banned in the US until 1985. It never really got a foothold at my college, but I remember it being talked about as a safe high, not like those scary drugs like cocaine or LSD. I think the use at my school died way down after the college health services undertook a serious effort to educate students as to the dangers of X.
I agree it could happen on any campus. This is why it’s a bad idea to use unregulated substances! I wonder if any of these kids are vegan or anti-GMO, but willing to take a batch of drugs from who knows where containing who knows what?
Agree it could happen on any campus, and it is maddening. Someone, likely not themselves, is thousands of dollars for them to get an education and improve themselves, and all some of them care about is killing their brain cells in one way or another.
This was reported in the Yale paper:
“Wesleyan’s crime statistics for 2013, as made public through the Clery Act, reported that the school had seen 240 drug abuse violations reported to the judicial committee in the past year, for a student body of 2,900.”
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/02/25/four-wesleyan-students-arrested-after-molly-drug-overdose/
That seems like a high number. No information is given on how many students were involved; presumably the 240 violations included multiple offenses. And there’s no way to tell how many students used drugs and were not caught.
I’m wondering what fraction of the students are drug users.
How do you ask that on a Tour…!!!
I can assure you that precisely the same thing was true in the 1970s. Things like Reefer Madness were ludicrous, and parental fears that kids were “on drugs” if they smoked pot were so overblown, that why believe anything else?
Luckily, for most people this skepticism did not extend to heroin.
When I was a kid heroin users were junkies one stepped over on the Bowery. There’s no way I would have tried that.
Now, however, the crackdown on oxy and other pain pills appears to have led to a major resurgence in heroin use.
Our drug policy is like a very sad game of whack-a-mole.
“How do you ask that on a Tour…!!!”
Parents won’t get useful information about this on a tour in front of other parents. Kids may get it if they do an overnight visit and/or connect with current students/recent alumni away from official channels.
How does a crackdown on pain pills lead to heroin use? Students are not taking heroin because they need a pain pill.
People do switch to heroin after getting addicted to pain pills. It’s cheaper.
When we took a tour at wesleyan with S2, one of the moms on the tour asked the guide if what she heard about kids getting high on Foss (I think I’ve remembered the name correctly?) Hill was true. The guide responded that kids get high on all college campuses & if the mom was concerned about her kid taking drugs in college that was a conversation she should have with her kid. Seemed like a good answer to me & a lot of the other parents who hung back to discuss the question & response. Needless to say, her kid looked deeply embarrassed.
Okay, so why are students getting addicted to pain pills and isn’t that what the crackdown is intended to avoid? If they are getting addicted to street drugs and then switching to heroin because it’s cheaper than oxy which is probably true then they already have very big problems that no college can be blamed for or be expected to solve with some policy. Maybe, something in admissions.
Kids get high on all campuses. Not every campus has a culture which is accepting and embracing of the drug/dance scene culture; not every campus treats dealing and other drug offenses the same; colleges differ in how they treat ER visits or how they refer substance abusers for treatment; not every hospital near a college campus is equipped to recognize and treat drug abuse.
My “stab in the dark” guess would be that Wesleyan has more of a problem (adjusted for student population) with drugs than Fairfield, Trinity, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart (to compare it to other small college’s in CT). U Conn likely has a bigger problem with alcohol than Wesleyan. Connecticut College likely similar.
Just a guess based on “student reputation” in Connecticut. If I did follow up interviews with members of the law enforcement community (which I haven’t) I bet I could develop a pretty good picture of the campus scene and the trouble spots. I think there is a material difference, for example, in a college that tolerates kids dealing from their dorm rooms vs. a college which knows that there is a spot in town where kids can go to find drugs if they so choose… and that this college works with local law enforcement to get the drug mart shut down if/when feasible. If I’m a “non partyer” stuck with a kid selling pills out of our room Freshman year, I will have a very different experience than a kid living on a college campus which has a zero tolerance policy for dealing-- where there may be a portion of the students who go off campus to buy drugs on the weekends.
Kids get high everywhere but living with them is NOT going to the same experience for the non-partyers.
4 students have been arrested.
I am not the least sympathetic to drug use. However, one of the 4 arrested was only charged with possession, not sale or intent to sell. The fact that he wasn’t charged with selling is being lost in the stories about this–stories which will show up on google for a long time.
I hope none of them are children of CC posters. If any are, my heart goes out to you.
^It may be because they had information that the student was a source of MDMA but they didn’t find enough in his room or on his property to charge him with anything more than simple possession.