STONE COLD SOBER? OR JUST PLAIN STONED?

Students at Seattle University spent nearly $31,000 in the 2005-06
academic year to attend the school. Many parents willingly made the
sacrifice to them, four years at a small private university in an
urban atmosphere would provide their children with an intimate
education, both in the classroom and on the streets.

But on campus, illegal drugs have taken their place alongside alcohol
as a popular way to unwind at the end of the day. Terms like "the
Stoop" have made their way into the vocabulary of marijuana smokers
and drug-free scholars alike.

Among the thousands of students living on campus and in the
neighborhoods surrounding it, as habitual drug use grows and fear of
risk declines, many teenagers new to the area find a much more
accepting and alluring drug atmosphere than in their home town.

Though parents may not know it, their children are seeing a side of
college life many would think nonexistent at a small, Jesuit
university ranked "Stone Cold Sober" by the Princeton Review.

Campus Drug Use in Seattle

Seattle University isn't alone. Drug use, in varying levels, can be
seen throughout institutions of higher education in King County.

Statistics on drug policy violations at the three major universities
in the Seattle area Seattle University, the University of Washington,
and Seattle Pacific University paint a very different picture of the schools.

At SU, current enrollment is over 7000 students (about a fifth of
whom live on campus). In 2004 Public Safety handled 32 drug related
judicial referrals, almost twice as many as the year before.

In 2002, when SU had 28 drug law violations on-campus, at the
University of Washington whose statistics after that year have yet to
be published online there were 47 policy violations in the residence
halls. The UW has nearly 30,000 undergraduate students - four times
that of Seattle University.

Despite their size, the UW had only 19 more policy violations than
SU. Is this because Seattle University students are much heavier drug
users than their Husky peers across the water?

Not necessarily. Because the school is so much larger, according to a
representative at the University of Washington Police Department, the
UW breaks their safety patrols into two sections: the northeast
corner, in which there are four residence halls, and the southwest
corner, in which there are three residence halls and some student apartments.

Despite this, the UWPD only has one officer on patrol in each section
on a given night. At Seattle University, according to head of Public
Safety Mike Sletten, there is one officer assigned to each residence
hall from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. on weeknights, and until 4 a.m. on weekends.

"Roughly, we're doing 60 hours of presence when they're maybe doing
about eight," said Sletten, comparing the two. "As a rough ball park,
[UW] is five times the territory, space, facility spaces and acreage,
and roughly five times the people count."

At the complete opposite end of the drug use spectrum is Seattle
Pacific University. The private Christian college had 3,022
undergraduate students enrolled as of their autumn quarter 2005, half
of whom lived in the dorms. But in 2004, when enrollment numbers were
similar, the school had only two judicial referrals for on-campus
drug use; the year before that, zero. From 2002-2004, their drug
offenses on which judicial action was taken totaled three.

"I would think that one of the main reasons [for the low numbers] is
that both alcohol and drugs are recognized policy violations on the
campus," said Vic Peirsol, associate director of Public Safety at
SPU, "and one [for] which administrative discipline would be merited out."

Seattle Pacific's Student Life has their drug policy posted online.
Illicit drug use, along with alcohol and tobacco use, is strictly
prohibited at on and off-campus events. Possession can lead to
disciplinary action, "including termination/expulsion, and referral
for prosecution." Furthermore, students who attend school functions
appearing under the influence will be immediately suspended and
possibly subject to further punishment.

Cocaine: A Generational Trend?

Beyond marijuana use, another worrisome trend for universiity
students is the increased use of cocaine, a highly addictive amphetimine.

The stakes for cocaine's use are higher than for marijuana. According
to Washington State Legislature, possession of any amount of a
Schedule II controlled substance such as cocaine makes one guilty of
a class C felony. Punishment is up to five years in a state
correctional facility and/or a $10,000 fine.

"A lot of people on my floor just had it, and I never had to pay for
it," said Jennifer*, a sophomore who found the drug around her upon
beginning freshman year. "They would invite me to do it with them. It
was free, and it was what everybody was doing [...] I think in this
particular generation, it is starting to become popular again."

Jennifer sees various reasons for the ease of access to cocaine.
Students at private universities tend to have money they can throw
toward costly drugs. With more social groups using it, more will be
faced with the decision to try their first line. Last year she saw
use confined to one inclusive group; this year, there are several. In
Seattle, though not particularly easier to acquire than in Jennifer's
central United States hometown, cocaine is prevalent.

"It's pretty easy to find coke anywhere," says Samantha*, also a
sophomore. She is seated on the floor of her studio apartment
dividing up lines on a mirror in the late afternoon. The night before
she spent $140 on an "8-ball" (3.5 grams of cocaine); the small
amount left over was now neatly divided between her and a girlfriend
to use before attending a baseball game. "Drugs that aren't easy to
find are heroin and stuff like that."

As is the case with the Seattle Police Department, disciplinary
action from the school is much more severe for cocaine than for
marijuana. According to Mike Sletten, small amounts of marijuana for
personal use are usually deferred to the departments on campus that
handle student conduct.

Though it hasn't happened, if the school discovers any amount of
cocaine they must refer it to contacts within the SPD.

"We simply get it to the police if it's any quantity or type of
narcotic that's outside of a misdemeanor," Sletten said. He estimates
that over the past five years, SPD has been called in once or twice a
year, on average, for a drug-related incident.

The extent to which harder drug use beyond cocaine and marijuana
spreads is unclear. As one former drug dealer said at the end of our
interview, while he knows that users of meth and other substances
attend Seattle University, getting one to talk to a reporter unless
the reporter will take part in their habit with them is an unlikely
scenario "in order to meet a hard drug user, you have to put it out
that you're also a hard drug user."

Sletten acknowledges that marijuana remains a concern for his
department, but says that this year appears to be on track with the
narcotic reports of years past. He expects to end the spring quarter
with a total of around 30 documented violations spanning the entire year.

Seattle U's student population has consistently increased. The class
of 2008 was the biggest freshman class in SU's history. There are
already plans to build another residence hall.

As the school continues to earn high rankings from organizations like
US World and News Report and the Princeton Review, it will attract
more youth interested in a good education. With students attending a
university in major city, there will also be more students exposed to
the realities of urban drug use.

*Names have been changed to protect individual's identity.