Archive for November, 2007

Sipping, toking, snorting, shooting on the rise

November 29, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , ,

In the time it takes most students to complete their bachelor’s degree at SF State, the campus has seen an overall rise in drug use.

Although previous reports on drug and alcohol use in the California State University system indicated that negative consequences associated with drinking are on the decline at campuses, a recent survey taken by about 5,000 SF State students suggests otherwise. In fact, the amount of SF State students consuming alcohol is at roughly the same level as it was five years ago and the use of marijuana, heroin and cocaine have gone up.

“I think numbers can be helpful to see where we need to concentrate our efforts,” said Bita Shooshani, a clinical counselor at SF State’s CEASE (Creating Empowerment Through Alcohol and Substance-Abuse Education.)

According to the National Core Alcohol and Drug Survey created by the Southern Illinois University and conducted at SF State by CEASE, 73 percent of the students surveyed reported consuming alcohol within the last 30 days in 2007, up from 71 percent of SF students in 2002. Marijuana use among students also rose 2 percent in 2007, with 23 percent of students reporting smoking marijuana in the last 30 days compared with 21 percent in 2002.

SF State’s alcohol use is consistent with the national average of 72 percent of students who reported drinking in the last 30 days. However, only 17.5 percent of college students nationwide reported smoking marijuana in the last 30 days—about 5 percent fewer students than on SF State’s campus.

Michael Ritter, coordinator of Prevention Education Programs at SF State’s CEASE said this may be reflecting San Francisco’s drug culture.

“I think that has mirrored the development of more of a common acceptance,” he said.

Cocaine and heroin use, although at much lower levels than alcohol or marijuana, has seen an upswing at SF State since the 2002 survey.

In the 2002 survey 1.8 percent reported using cocaine compared to 3.4 percent in 2007, and heroin use rose from 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent. Ritter said the rise in these numbers is consistent with the national level.

Ecstasy and methamphetamine usage is declining. According to the 2002 survey results 2.9 percent of SF State students were using ecstasy compared with 1.7 percent in 2007. Methamphetamine use at SF State was at 3.4 percent in 2002 and at 2.1 percent, five years later, according to the 2007 statistics.

According to Shooshani this year’s higher freshman population may account for the increased drug and alcohol use, and Ritter cited the school’s transformation into a more residential campus as another possible explanation.

Although SF State is right on track with other U.S. colleges in regards to drug and alcohol usage, the school does have fewer substance-related incidents such as drinking and driving. Twenty-three percent of SF State students reported driving a car under the influence compared to 26 percent of all U.S. college students and just 7.5 percent of SF State’s students reported having been in trouble with the police, residential hall, or other college hall authority for drinking compared to 14 percent of the students in the reference group representing all U.S. colleges.

Also, 15.3 percent of SF State students admitted to having a problem with drugs and/or alcohol while only 10.6 percent of the national reference groups did.

Shooshani said she sees this as a positive and attributes these statistics as reflecting a “greater consciousness” towards drugs and alcohol use at SF State.

“I think people are talking about it more,” she said of drug use. “Although people are talking about legalizing marijuana [they're also discussing] what’s a problem and what’s not a problem.”

SF State student Dan Neeson, 23, said he drank every day while studying abroad in France last semester. Now that he’s back home, Neeson estimated drinking about three times a week. While Neeson admitted to binge drinking occasionally, he said it wasn’t something he did that often or let get of hand. But Neeson said he had a friend in England who had a drinking problem that interfered with his college course work. Neeson said his friend’s teachers helped him through the school work and let him off a little more easily because of it.

“Here I don’t think that would really fly,” he said of SF State.

“I don’t believe that,” SF State student Nancy Phu, 22, said of the survey statistic that stated that 23 percent of SF state students smoked marijuana. “A lot of them are liars.”

Phu said she drinks, but not as often as she did when she was younger.

“I don’t party a lot, maybe if I was a freshman or a sophomore, but I’m a senior and am focusing on graduating,” she said.

Phu also mentioned that she felt as if SF State was beginning to take on the image of a “party school,” adding that one of her professors told the class that SF State was right up with Chico State due to the amount of partying in the Park Merced area.

Regardless of whether the survey underestimated the amount of students smoking marijuana, it indicates more work needs to be done.

According to the survey 25 percent reported drinking three or more times a week in the more recent survey and 39 percent reported binge drinking—consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting—within the two weeks prior to taking the survey. Ritter suggested that students who fall into this category might benefit from seeking counseling from CEASE.

Ritter said students are often referred to the CEASE program by teachers when students come to them admitting they have a drug problem or when students are caught with drugs in the residential halls.

Shooshani said that they have seen an increase in the amount of students seeking counselors over the past few semesters and, at this point, all time slots to see a counselor are full until the rest of the semester.

For this reason, CEASE will be holding a group meeting that will deal with individual drug and alcohol assessment with a CEASE counselor on Dec. 4 from 3-4:30 p.m. in room 208 in the Student Services building. Shooshani said drop-ins are welcome.

In addition, SF State offers on-campus alcohol and narcotics anonymous meetings and students can assess their own alcohol and marijuana use by taking the anonymous e-chug and e-toke surveys at www.sfsu.edu/~cease/.

Leave a Comment

Substance-free dorm struggles to stay sober

November 8, 2007 at 11:15 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , , ,

Although dorm parties are synonymous with on-campus residences, substance-free living has been an option at SF State for a decade. This semester and in recent years, however, adhering to that theme has been tricky.

“It’s not as successful as we had hoped,” said Resident Assistant Carlo Delgadillo of the substance-free floor located at the Mezzanine level of the Towers at Centennial Square. “But no floor is, really.”

Resident Ben Langholz, 18, attested to that.

“It’s not very substance free,” he said, and added that he was aware of smoking and drinking on the floor all the time.

The Towers have been home to those who wish to live drug and alcohol-free for four years. This semester, out of the 42 students who live on the substance-free level, only two chose to live there, which floor advisor Kevin Kinney said accounts for the problems the floor has had with broken policies.

“Not all residents on the floor necessarily wanted to live on a substance free floor,” Kinney wrote in an email. “But that was the option that was available to them and they knowingly chose to take it.”

Kinney wrote that students who live there must sign a written agreement indicating they will not consume or possess alcohol or illegal drugs on the floor or they will lose on campus residency. Students also agree to not to return to the floor under the influence of a controlled substance.

This semester, some students have been moved off the substance free floor due to violating the polices. Delgadillo added that they’ve been shifting people around in an attempt to cut back on the number of conflicts in the future.

According to Kinney, a number of students on the floor have had their contracts cancelled on the floor as well. To preserve confidentiality, exact numbers could not be given.

Substance-free resident Jamie Nickerson, 19, said although she doesn’t drink in the apartment, she does like to party on the weekends.

She did not choose to live on the substance-free floor and said she was upset when she found out she was placed there.

“I think it’s really lame that they have it,” she said of the substance-free floor. “No one seems to take it seriously.”

Kyle Noland, one of the two voluntary floor residents, said his reasons for choosing the floor were, in part, due to his mother’s influence but he also wanted to live in a quieter environment.

Noland said there have been two tense meetings in which the RAs “were just yelling at the residents for not being substance free,” but said overall he is content with his living arrangement.

Delgadillo said the people that live on the floor represent a diverse group of interests regarding substances.

“You get some people that want to be there, people that don’t and people that don’t care,” he said.

Kinney said that some students need a substance-free floor to succeed at SF State. These students may have a desire to avoid a drug and alcohol environment or they may have a history of alcohol or drug use and are working towards sobriety or overcoming addiction, he said.

The first floor of Mary Ward hall is also considered substance-free, and, like the Towers, has its own set of problems with maintaining the sober status.
Resident Erik Olea, 19, said he chose to live on the floor.

“I don’t want to be surrounded by people who party, do drugs, and that kind of stuff,” he said.

Olea said he didn’t have to sign an agreement as is done on the Towers’ substance-free floor, but Olea said the floor seems much quieter compared to what he’s seen elsewhere.

Fellow resident Kyle Morris, 18, also cited silence as his reason for moving to the floor. Morris said he liked the fact that he could leave the dorms for the evening and not come back to a party.

Morris added that he has heard rumors of substance use on the floor, but he hasn’t seen it personally.

One freshmen on the Mary Ward floor substance free floor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he didn’t chose to live on the floor but said he didn’t think his neighbors took the substance-free policy very seriously.

“Sometimes I’ll be walking through the hall here and it smells like weed,” he said. “I think one of my neighbors got busted for it.”

Kinney acknowledged that while some students on the designated floors will “challenge the policy,” he said he didn’t see how that style of living should be too much to ask of students.

And Kinney claimed that the majority of the students living on these floors are living substance-free.

“On-Campus Housing is not a requirement for SF State students,” he wrote. “People who do not wish to live on a substance-free floor should probably look for other options out in the city.”

Leave a Comment

Elevator malfunction evacuates Village

November 5, 2007 at 9:20 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , ,

Residents in the Village at Centennial Square were evacuated for more than four hours early Sunday morning following an elevator malfunction on the B-side of the Village, according to SF State spokesperson Ellen Griffin.

A brief power shortage set off the Village’s generator just before midnight, triggering the elevator failure and setting off the fire alarm a few minutes later.

Nearly half of the Village residents were home during the time of the evacuation Griffin said and these students waited around outside on State Drive, and inside the Mary Park Hall and the Science and Technology Theme Community lounges for the duration of the evacuation.

According to University Police Sgt. Emiliano Balistreri, who explained the situation to the roughly 40 residents and a few Resident Assistants sitting in Mary Park, the campus police and the San Francisco Fire Department were unable to re-set the alarm and an employee from the fire alarm company was coming from San Leandro to re-set it.

A representative from the company, Simplex Grinnell, said they received a call at 1 a.m. requesting this alarm re-set. According to Griffin, PG&E and the campus facilities also had a hand in resolving the issue.

Initial reports indicated that the generator was blowing smoke or fumes into the smoke detector, but Griffin reported that once the generator was turned off the alarm remained on.

“Until they isolated why they were getting that signal [the alarm] wasn’t going to turn off,” Griffin said.

After about 2 hours of waiting around, the RAs told the Village residents that while a risk of fire didn’t appear to be present, they couldn’t allow students back in the building until they re-set the continuously buzzing alarm.

If there was a fire, there would be no warning system in place as the alarm was already going off, they explained.

After evacuating her building for many false alarms, Village resident Rachel Duron, 21, was surprised to learn that this time the alarm had gone off for a legitimate reason.

“[I’m] tired of the alarm going off all the time,” she said. “I wasn’t going to come out but my [roommates] made me.”

Fellow Village resident Alex Soden, 19, felt the process could have been smoother.

“It seems a little disorganized,” he said of the evacuation. “Three and a half hours seems way too long.”

But Erin Rea, 18, also a Village resident, said she sympathizes with the Resident Assistants (RAs) that stood waiting with the students listening for reports of an all clear.

“It sucks that the RAs are getting such a bad rep,” she said. “They can’t help it.”

Many students took naps on Café in the Park’s floor or rested their heads on the tables. Residents were allowed back into their Village apartments just after 3 a.m.

Griffin reported that the campus facilities are currently making final repairs on the failed elevator and two fully functioning elevators are still available for resident use.

Leave a Comment