KSU professor explains why he passed out

Acworth man blames incident on medication mix-up.

A Kennesaw State University professor says there’s a reason he was found by police passed out, seemingly drunk, inside the school’s student center with a halfempty beer and assorted pills in his truck.

Brent Christopher Allsup, of Acworth, was arrested Oct. 5 on three felony drug charges and an open-container misdemeanor count. Allsup blames it on forgetfulness and an accidental medication mix-up of taking both Hydrocodone and Xanax.

Tiffany Capuano, a KSU spokeswoman, said that Allsup was working part-time as a professor in the business college’s school of accounting but is no longer teaching classes due to the investigation.

“There was no alcohol involved,” Allsup told the AJC. “I mean, there was an open container in the vehicle,”he said, but the halfempty, 16-ounce aluminum beer bottle found by police was from tailgating at the Falcons-Bills game on Sunday.

He was arrested the following Thursday.

Police wrote in the warrant that they found Allsup “intoxicated by consumption of alcohol and medication” and that he “stated that he drove to KSU after drinking 3 to 5 beers.”

Allsup said that’s a misunderstanding.

The professor said that even though he doesn’t remember giving police consent to search his car — “I was essentially blacked out” — he remembers thinking the officers were asking how many beers he regularly had, not how many beers he’d had that night.

He said the combination of medication made him seem drunk. “I could not articulate anything really well because I was out of it.”

As for how the medication mix-up happened, he said, “I think I just grabbed the wrong medication out of my bottle ... I don’t keep every prescription bottle with me, I just take what I need for the day and go.”

He said he took the pills before his 8 p.m. managerial accounting course.

“Normally I take Xanax, something, to calm my nerves before I go speak in front of a class,” he said.

Allsup said Thursday, a week after his arrest, that he plans on resigning until the investigation is over so another professor can teach his class.

“There’s no point in me taking away from the student experience because I have an ongoing investigation,” he said.