Tag Archives: drugs

EVENT
Drugs, Harm, and the Campus

How should we – as a university and as a society – address the use of illicit drugs? In light of recent events, the Allbritton Center is bringing together experts from a variety of fields and perspectives for panel discussions on drug use and policies at Wesleyan and beyond. The hope is to have an open and informative dialogue, and to provide a space for sharing your questions and concerns. All students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome. Questions for panelists may be submitted at each event or in advance to scapron[at]wesleyan[dot]edu or @wes_engage.

Drug Use @Wes
What are we doing about drugs at Wesleyan and why? Join use for a panel discussion on education, support, and policies.
Panelists: Tanya Purdy (Director of Health Education, WesWELL), Beth Dericco (Higher Education Outreach, Caron Treatment Centers), and Ashley Fine ‘15
Moderator: Mike Shaley, Vice President of Student Affairs
Date: Tuesday, April 7
Time: 4:30 PM
Place: PAC 002

The Physiology of Drugs
What is actually happening inside your body?
Panelists: Mike Robinson (Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience & Behavior), Stefanie Jones (Drug Policy Alliance), Mark Neavyn, MD (Director, Medical Toxicology, Department of Emergency Medicine, Hartford Hospital)
Moderator: Ishita Mukerji, Dean of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Memorial Chapel

Drug Policy, Regional and National
The policy debate: what is to be done?
Panelists: Ethan Nadelmann (Founder and Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance), Susan O’Connor (Program Director, Phoenix House), Mike Lawlor (Under Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning in the State Office of Policy and Management)
Moderator: Rob Rosenthal, Director, Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life
Date: Wednesday, April 28
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Shanklin 107

FEATURED
Crime, Punishment, and Justice in the Face of Tragedy

This post is part of a series of reflections on the recent events on campus. If you have anything that you would like to contribute, please feel free to reach out to us at staff[at]wesleying[dot]org.

In a matter of hours after I write these words, students, friends, and members of the Wesleyan community will be seen before a judicial panel somewhere in North College to determine whether or not they will be allowed to stay on campus. I first heard about this from a petition that is being circulated calling on Deans Whaley, Culliton and Backer for “sound judgment and restorative justice” for the students that are facing a hearing over spring break when the majority of campus is away. The petition states, “judicial processes [are] being blatantly overruled” and seems to paint these trials as unusual, suspicious, and unjust.

I wanted to investigate these claims and help spread awareness of how our school’s judicial system actually functions. While much of this information is available in the “Judicial Procedures” section of our Student Handbook, I know few of us actually read or understand these rights and procedures.  This post is my search for truth in face of unfortunate circumstances while recognizing that the Student Judicial Board is so often given a bad reputation due to misinformation. I want to understand how and why these students are being charged and how the University has handled this case.

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FEATURED
Reflections on the Recent Hospitalizations, Arrests and Wesleyan

This post is the first in a small series of reflections on the recent events on campus, to be published over the next few days. If you have anything that you would like to contribute, please feel free to reach out to us.

I am writing this in response to the traumatic and overwhelming events that have happened over the past few days – the hospitalization of a dozen students and the arrest of four others, as well as the media and institutional reactions. I hope that this can be a space of positive dialogue and solidarity, where we share our thoughts and reflections with compassion and humanity. I hope to counter the intense and destructive negativity and inappropriateness of some of the language being used to address these events in our own community, in person and online, in the media portrayals and in the administration’s emails. These events remind of us of the importance of fostering a supportive community, one that we must build on our own, as the student body.  These thoughts hope to help support that process of reconciliation, healing, and empowerment.

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FEATURED
Drugzzz (?)

Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 6.20.19 PM

Mysterious fliers advertising the return of what initially appears to be the Delta Mu Tau Greek organization have appeared in Usdan, but closer inspection reveals that no such sorority or fraternity exists. One possible explanation of the acronym is that DMT, a psychedelic drug first synthesized in Canada of all places, is on campus and available for purchase. While details remain unconfirmed, this blogger can assure you the fliers bear the mark of Satan. Questions to explore going forward include:

  • Have meddlesome reefer youths soiled the hallowed halls of Old Meth with their witch potions and demon rum?
  • Is Delta Mu merely a ploy by the Inter-Greek Council of warlocks and Satan-worshippers to maintain their reign of terror?
  • Why post in Usdan? Who even goes there anymore?
  • Where can I get a connect?
  • Illuminati???????

Updates to follow.

FEATURED
Students Arrested for Dealing Drugs

Saturday evening, Middletown police officers arrived at the Nics to investigate the existence of drugs after they were called to the scene by Public Safety. According to a piece by NBC Connecticut, the two students in question “denied having drugs or drug-related materials in the room, but when public safety said they would call police, the students handed over various items, including marijuana, a bong with marijuana residue, rolling papers and other drug-related material, police said.”

The entire incident began to unfold after Public Safety was called to the Nics sparked by two students that were found to be stealing shampoo from another resident of the dorm. Their room reportedly was a place of constant activity, with people coming in and out, raising suspicion amongst other students.

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FEATURED
Repost: “Hey, Prefrosh: Stay for Saturday”

As noted a few days ago, Wesleying’s A-Batte wrote a plea for prefrosh to stay for Zonker Harris Day and 4/20 and posted it on the Admissions’ “Voices” blog. It was subsequently removed by Admissions staffers, who felt it would be more appropriate for Wesleying. It’s no longer timely for prefrosh, but it is a fun and informative read, so we’re posting it here for posterity. 

Hey there, prefrosh! If you’re reading this, there is a greater-than-zero chance that you either are on campus right now or will be in the next couple days, potentially for the first time ever. If you’re a potential member of the Class of 2017, congratulations on your acceptance! Along with the rest of the Wesleyan community, I’m delighted to welcome you here, and hope that you find the various activities of WesFest this year eclectic and appealing enough to seriously consider attending next year. In the way of resources for the next few days, you may want to make use of the administration’s official schedule for the weekend or the WesAdmits 2017 facebook page for accepted students. You may also want to check out the “WesFest” tag on Wesleying, a student-run blog that covers student life on and around campus (which I should mention I write for; sorry if this sounds like a cheap plug).

WesFest runs from today, Wednesday, through Friday, April 19th, and you should feel free to do roam campus as you feel best while you’re here. If you don’t mind, though, and you have the time, I think that you should seriously consider staying for Saturday, 4/20, which is Zonker Harris Day, an annual student-organized celebration which typically takes place during WesFest. If you do, you’ll get a better picture of what life at Wesleyan — social, academic, and beyond — is actually like, which will help you make a more informed decision about your future in higher education. Interested? Click past the jump for some more information.

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FEATURED
A Counterperspective: Celebrating 4/20 from my Dorm Window

Can you celebrate 4/20 without “protesting existing marijuana laws” on the hill?

grumpy cat - stayin' inside

The following article may be appealing to prefrosh who think all of Wesleyan is like this and are reacting like this, whether or not WesFest falls on 4/20.

Around noon on Saturday morning, as I took my first and nearly last steps out of Clark Hall on this most glorious holiday, the repugnant stench of weed began to attack my scent receptors. Walking by Foss on my way to Usdan brunch proved that I was already late for the party—the games had begun.

I had been proactive in my avoidance of the anticipated craziness. Not really, but it was a happy coincidence that we were planning a social program around my friend’s birthday, which was the day before. We had arranged for a projector and screen in order to play Super Smash Brothers Melee as a hall. Asking for the equipment and calling it a social program also got us money for pizza, which is awesome. Thanks, ResLife!

Thus, I left the dorm a second time, to get the giant screen and projector from Bennett Hall. This time I noticed the Whey Station chillin’ in the WestCo Courtyard and people baking in the sun on Foss (see what I did there?). I enjoyed the trippy musical accompaniment as I carried the heavy metal contraption back to my dorm. I entered Clark once more, never to venture out again.

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FEATURED
#ThisIsHigh: Students “Choose to Protest Existing Marijuana Laws,” P-Safe Protests Students Protesting Existing Marijuana Laws

Using photoshopped Michael Roth ’78 heads to avoid incriminating students definitely hasn’t gotten old yet, right?

For the fifth or tenth or maybe even twentieth year in a row, hundreds of students gathered on Foss Hill at 4:20 on April 20 to submerge the Middletown skyline in a sea of smoke as potent as any since the Grateful Dead serenaded Foss in 1970. Only this time Dean Rick Culliton gave the practice a name. He called it “protesting existing marijuana laws.” Did you have a civically engaged weekend?

Leave it to students to give it a hashtag:

Once again, the weather was quite a bit friendlier to 4/20 than it’s been to Spring Fling in recent years, and members of Public Safety harshed some students’ mellow by tramping around with video cameras and stamping out joints left and right.

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FEATURED
Here’s Why Senior Cocks Got Shut Down in Two Hours Last Night

Spoiler: It involves sex, drugs, and rock & roll projectile vomiting.

Last night, around 7:30 p.m., a few hundred well-oiled members of the Class of 2013 piled into buses outside of Usdan, headed—unbeknownst to passengers—to the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. Two hours later, a drunker, louder, and scientifically inspired Class of 2013 was herded onto the same buses and driven right back to Middletown. The “Freaks and Geeks, Valentine’s Day style”-themed evening—which cost $40 and made for the third senior event of the year—wasn’t supposed to end abruptly in less than two hours, but according to one student who overheard an exchange between museum staffers and Wesleyan coordinators, the ejection may have been well earned.

“I overheard that staffers at the Connecticut Science Center observed students ‘doing drugs and having sex in the bathrooms,’ and that things were getting broken,” explained the student, who asked not to be named. “I am not sure whether or to what extent that is exaggerated or not; it was said rather offhandedly and by someone who appeared to be under a lot of duress at the time.”

If you noticed copious amounts of baking soda lining the stairs of the museum, that, too, had something to do with the staff’s unhappy reaction.

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EVENT
Wes Free Society Discussion on Healthcare


Charlie Smith ’15 wants to talk about drugs and money:

Healthcare is subject to among the most government intervention of any industry in the United States and yet the results seem to be anything but ideal. Is the solution further intervention or can the free market keep costs low and quality high as it does in most other sectors of the economy?

This week we will discuss everything that is healthcare policy from FDA regulation to medical licensure to health insurance. Hope to see you there.

Date: Tuesday, November 13
Time: 8:00 pm
Place: 41 Wyllys, Room 113
Cost: Free (unlike healthcare)