USU Drugs: Who, How, Where
Utah State University, like other universities, has a drug problem.
In 2014, three-quarters of arrests were related to drugs or alcohol, with USU campus police making a total of 174 arrests.
According to local law enforcement, the biggest problems have always remained the same: alcohol and cannabis. “Marijuana is huge, probably the frontrunner, that and alcohol,” said Sgt. Brooks Davis of the Logan City drug task force.
Drugs like marijuana come to USU through several channels and according to officials, almost always arrive in small recreational amounts. Often it’s purchased in Salt Lake City, or brought over from states where recreational use of cannabis is permitted or permission for medicinal use is easily obtainable.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a student that was a dealer,” said Officer Steve Milne of the USU Police Department. “That’s not to say we haven’t had people in the past that were arrested for dealing but most of our arrests are small amounts from single source users.”
Those arrests however, have gone up significantly in the past few years.
Drug incidents have more than doubled since 2012 and 2013 which both saw 11 incidents, followed by 2014 where those numbers totaled 35. According to Milne, these incidents usually result in multiple arrests.
The rise in numbers, said Milne, could be due to a lot of things: an influx in students, campus police working more closely with resident assistants and an increase in the number of roommates who “want nothing to do with it,” who call and give up information about the problem, he said.
Those arrests happen primarily in residential areas on campus, with the Living Learning Community (LLC) leading far ahead of other areas of campus in terms of the number of drug and alcohol-related incidents, followed comparably by ‘the Towers’ and Richards and Bullen Hall.
In preparation for USU’s purchase of the popular off-campus housing complex, Blue Square, USU Police Department collected Logan City’s call reports to try and better understand crime rates in the area.
The rate at Blue Square was “surprisingly not as much as we thought it was going to be,” Milne said referring to the call reports. “There are twice as many residents but we had twice as many calls to the LLC alone.”
The LLC and Blue Square will be the two most expensive university-owned housing options.
Ryan Barfuss, prevention specialist at USU, works with three high-risk groups on campus.
At USU, those high-risk groups are those who’ve had issues in the past, or groups who show they use high risk amounts of these substances. Those groups include freshmen, student athletes and those in the Greek community.
“The difference between on-campus and off-campus is that on-campus is heavily monitored,” Barfuss said. “You have eyes everywhere, the chances of getting caught are pretty good. Whereas if they go off campus, and they’re not drawing attention to themselves, they can generally get away with it.”
Barfuss iterates that although drug and alcohol usage is a problem, it’s not as big as students believe it is.
According to a health and wellness survey USU puts out every two years asking about usage — including mental health, nutrition and sexual health, among other things — alcohol and drug use at USU are not the biggest concerns. The prominent issue has, overwhelmingly, been mental health.
When comparing data with others, the majority of students at USU and other institutions in Utah don’t drink or smoke, including the University of Utah, Weber State University and Southern Utah University.
“Right now, about 75 percent of students don’t drink here at Utah State,” he said. “Looking at national numbers, at other schools, it’s the flip-flop opposite.”
The problem is perceived use, which can sometimes lead to actual use, Barfuss said.
The health and wellness survey found that students think around 80 percent of students use drugs or alcohol at USU, compared to the actual 25 percent that do. “Everybody thinks that’s what college is, it’s a place that students come to drink and party and play around,” Barfuss said.
“You look at Yik Yak and Yeti and it shows one person or a dozen people over and over again and it makes it look like the whole university is doing it,” Barfuss said.
That’s why, Barfuss said, freshman students are one of the high risk groups. “They finally have a bunch of freedom on their hands, nobody to tell them what to do or how to do it, so they jump in headfirst, whether it’s drinking, sex, drugs.”
For Barfuss, fall semester is always the worst. That means his schedule is followed by a busy spring.
This spring, his roughly 10-hour education course will have 60 students, most of which have been sent by housing, the university, a judicial officer or a court mandate to fulfill the requirements of USU.
“We have strong policies and we enforce those policies; it’s not wishy-washy, it is what it is,” said Barfuss.
A student incident involving drugs or alcohol results in fines, at a minimum, of around $1000, community service, education classes and probation.
When asked for student advice, Barfuss said to be responsible. “Find exactly what is responsible, don’t just do it because your buddy is doing it, but do it because it’s the smart thing to do.”
When asked about the two anonymous social media platforms, Yik Yak and Yeti, USU police and Logan City police said that they both monitor the sites. “We like people who advertise,” said Captain Budge of the LCPD.
— jacksonmurphy111@gmail.com