Hester’s tragedy shows why we must drive this evil off campuses
When I was headmaster at Brighton College, one of my students, hester Stewart, stood out as particularly vivacious, engaged and bright. She had ambitions to be a surgeon but in 2009, while studying molecular medicine at Sussex University, she died after taking the ‘party drug’ GBL.
hester was just 21, yet another in the long line of those who have fallen victim to the evils of drug-taking. Today the damage and deaths continue.
At Brighton, and later at Wellington College, I made a strong stand against drugtaking. So when I became a vice-chancellor three years ago, one of the first questions I asked was: Why can’t we make Buckingham a ‘drug-free campus’?
I was told by long-serving colleagues at other universities that I simply didn’t understand the culture; drugs, like heavydrinking nights, were a rite of passage for students at university.
Any attempt to challenge that culture would be seen as an infringement on the right of students and an over-reaction. I was out of touch, a middle-aged school teacher in the bright world of higher education. Forget it, they said.
I have, over the years, fought many battles. I once received a death threat from a pupil I expelled for drug-pushing, and when I introduced ‘well-being’ lessons to the curriculum, I was mocked by some in the educational establishment and the media (now they are commonplace).
But I had no desire to face down undermining comments I’d attract by tackling the campus drugs issue. Instead I focused on improving student mental health and the quality of university teaching.
The concerns would not go away, however, and the stories of druginduced death, injury and psychological damage among students across the country have continued to haunt me. As many as half of all students have taken drugs.
In despair, I wavered between one of two policy extremes: Following the practice of some boarding schools and expelling drug users, or managing an intractable problem the best we could by offering advice to students on how to take drugs safely. I didn’t favour either option. I asked myself what kind colluding of leaders moral in the leadership mass were consumption providing we university in of illegal drugs on our premises?
Where was the compassion, and care for vulnerable and often still young students living away from home for the first time, in letting the status quo blithely continue?
It is often the less confident students who are sucked in by social pressure to start taking drugs, and the most vulnerable who suffer the worst psychological damage. now, however, through talking to students at Buckingham, I believe we have found a different way – a revolution from below if you like. Students tell us they no longer want to be part of a culture that tolerates the injection, inhalation or ingestion of toxic chemicals, the origin and potency of which are unknown. They have a point. We know these drugs can cause irreparable damage. Just this month, researchers at Montreal University reported that cannabis poses a far greater risk to the teenage brain than alcohol. see Crucially, money students from their don’t peers want going to into a criminal activity that thrives by selling drugs and includes inveigling children to courier illegal substances, as the Mail has highlighted with its investigation of the ‘county lines’ scandal. There is something admirable, and ironic, about students making this stand where one might have expected university leaders to show the way. Dominant student leaders decree what the culture is, a culture that has for too long tolerated drugs and excessive drinking that many students want no part of and which those from different religious backgrounds and cultures find hard to challenge.
The middle way, which we are rolling out at Buckingham, aims to make the taking of illegal drugs as socially unacceptable as cigarette-smoking now is in public.
We aim to do this not by focusing on expulsion – this can lead to already marginalised students experiencing acute difficulties – but by a compassionate policy of making it clear that drug-taking is totally unwelcome on campus. And we will actively support those students who are struggling.
however, any students who don’t respect our policy, who repeatedly use drugs or who deal drugs, will be asked to leave.
BUCKINGHAM is the first university to adopt ‘positive psychology’ as our mentalhealth approach, which means we put the emphasis on giving students guidance and encouragement to lead physically and psychologically healthy lives.
We already invite police and sniffer dogs on to campus to look for drugs to deter use. We promote healthy alternatives to show students they do not have to get ‘wasted’ to have a good time.
Ultimately, we are working towards a student-framed contract pledging to our values and no drug-taking. Old fashioned maybe. But never more needed.
Fifteen years ago, most people would have said that you could never stamp out cigarette-smoking, yet we are close to doing exactly that. In 15 years, through this culture change driven by students, we will make drug-taking just as socially unacceptable.
Moreover, we will look back and be utterly amazed that our top academic institutions tolerated for so long the taking of chemicals supplied by criminals.
With cigarettes, initially we lacked the evidence that showed the harmful effects. On drugs, we already have the evidence.
It is insane to let this continue. The tragedy is so many young lives have been destroyed while we were asleep to our responsibilities.