Freshers’ fatal attraction to drugs
EDRUG- TAKING and university life almost seem to go hand in hand. Admit it, talking about student life and getting spaced is hardly going to shock the nation.
What has shocked us, though, is that four young people, three of them at higher level education in Newcastle, lost their lives in just one night to drugs.
Condolences to each of the families involved and huge empathy from so many parents who know they can’t judge, they can’t condemn, they can only hope that their child does not become a casualty, and that somehow their child can ignore the seductive lure drugs seem to offer. Maybe that lure is stronger this year with every campus or city lockdown that comes their way. Are students so starved of distractions and entertainment this year that they feel they must create an escape within their own four walls?
So normal is the use and the availability that the caveat “dodgy drugs” or “rogue batch” will be used, as if there is an industry standard. That what was supplied to these young people was a quality control mistake. That inexplicably the recipe somehow went wrong.
The recipe that went right however was an unfortunate cocktail of young people wanting to fit in, maybe wanting to escape day- to- day pressures, universities only paying lip service to a drugs policy, the open supply chain and lockdown. Covid- 19 keeps these
youngsters away from nightclubs – nightclubs which actually may seem safer than the uni campus. These clubs have door checks, security guards, zero- tolerance policies and usually paramedics nearby if something does go wrong.
Universities have guidance and policies too, but if they were really serious about the threat to their students shouldn’t they also have sniffer dogs and unscheduled searches as well?
However brutal it may seem to say it, each one of those young people who died must have known there was a chance that something could go wrong.
But at least two of them were freshers, with no history of drug taking, and new to the scene. Were they advised by more seasoned students? How did they know where to get their supply from? There are
WhatsApp and Snapchat forums out there to advertise the best deals. Everyone knows how to get their drug of choice. So why don’t the police and universities close down or track these suppliers?
Why did it take four deaths to produce 15 arrests?
Drugs are either illegal or they’re not. This halfway house of “everyone knowing but not saying” leads to what happened in Newcastle.
So do we legalise? Legitimise? Or just put our fingers in our ears and hope our children get lucky?
With so many uni halls in lockdown the devil will make work for idle students and dealers’ hands.
Our child is a fresher at uni, your child may be too. You may have packed them off and settled them in. None of us wish to be collecting them in a body- bag.