Dean Blackburn, assistant dean of students, said the survey results are not normally released to the public because the study’s contents require expert interpretation.
“The numbers need context,” he said. “We’re just below the national average,” he said about student drug use.
In treatment
If a student is charged with a drug-related offense, the University’s Dean of Students Office usually refers them to the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment Program (ASAP) — an outpatient rehabilitation facility funded by UNC Health Care.
The office works with the University Honor Court to determine the consequences for being caught possessing controlled substances.
The Honor Court is bound by minimum sanctions set by the UNC-system Board of Governors, at least a one-semester suspension, with the option to go further.
Punishment often includes treatment at ASAP.
Britta Starke, an addictions therapist and program director with ASAP who grew up in Chapel Hill and was once a part of the University culture, said she is observing a troubling shift in drug use.
“I didn’t see any of what I’m seeing now,” she said.
“I’m seeing a lot more heavier drugs and a lot more young folks using them.”
ASAP deals with 250 to 350 alcohol and drug abusers each month. Of those, about 20 percent are UNC-CH students, Starke said.
“If I looked on my (support) group list,” she said, scanning a large list of names, “six out of 17 patients on Monday were students.”
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And Starke said the majority of college-aged patients do not come to the clinic voluntarily.
“Most of the students are here because their parents have said they have to come in order to meet certain conditions for certain support, or staying in school, or keeping their car, or staying in the sorority or fraternity,” she said.
Starke said the warning signs of a drug addiction are not always easy to recognize.
“The red flags are usually things that you can rationalize, or justify or intellectualize,” she said. “You can say, ‘Well everybody does it. That’s just how it is. I’m not the only one.’”
And because of the quality of students at UNC-CH, the grades might be impacted last, she said.
“Parents also justify, ‘Well, it’s the college culture. There’s nothing wrong with my children drinking or smoking a little dope. I did it.’ You hear that a lot.”
On-campus arrests
Randy Young, spokesman for UNC-CH’s Department of Public Safety, said marijuana accounts for nearly 100 percent of drug-related arrests made on the University’s campus.
These arrests usually occur in on-campus housing or during routine traffic stops, he said.
UNC-CH has had 134 drug-related arrests on campus between 2007 and 2010, according to the Office of Postsecondary Education. The office tracks drug arrests on campuses nationwide.
Across the UNC system — which includes 16 college campuses — UNC-CH ranks second largest in population with about 29,000 students. It ranks fifth in the number of drug-related arrests systemwide.
Since 2007, Appalachian State University had the highest number of reported drug arrests on a UNC-system campus, with 450. The school has a population of about 17,000 students — the sixth largest out of the entire UNC system.
Cpt. Todd Corley, an investigations captain with ASU’s police, said people shouldn’t misinterpret the high numbers.
“All I can tell you is our numbers are high because our officers are out there doing their jobs,” he said. “Does that mean there’s a worse drug problem (at ASU) than any other campus? Probably not.”
Like UNC-CH, the vast majority of cases on ASU’s campus involve marijuana, Corley said.
“We’ve got nearly 6,000 people living on campus, right? And if we have 150 (drug) arrests for a year, that’s a very small percentage.”
Fayetteville State University, which ranks 13th in population with about 6,000 students, had the lowest number of drug arrests in the system with 11 since 2007.
Robert Hassell, FSU’s chief of campus police, said the low numbers are most likely a combination of fewer students, fewer drugs and fewer police.
“We’re really small,” he said. “Not knowing the environment of other campuses, it’s hard to say what we’re doing differently.”
And in Chapel Hill, Lt. Jabe Hunter, a narcotics officer with the town’s police department, said it’s difficult to determine with accuracy how many drugs are being trafficked into town.
“Quite honestly, we’re just dealing with a fraction of what’s out there,” he said. “So really, do we ever at one point know what is truly out there?”
“Just intuitively, I’d say it’s probably the same as it’s always been.”
Admissions of guilt
A few years ago, when he saw the police lights in his rearview mirror, T. said he had just one thought.
“I really hope there aren’t drugs in the car.”
For him, getting pulled over on campus and blowing a .06 underage were the least of his worries: the gram of cocaine the police found that night in his car was serious.
And so were the next eight grams he said he was arrested with during his resulting suspension.
After the second incident, he thought the University would never allow him back.
But his days as a dealer weren’t done. Neither were his days as a Tar Heel.
In UNC-CH’s admissions process, students are required to complete a community standards form, in which they are expected to disclose any criminal history or academic misconduct, said Ashley Memory, a senior assistant director with the department.
“By asking them to tell the truth up front, we hopefully establish a pattern of truthfulness in keeping with our Honor Code,” Memory said.
The department also relies on mandatory high school counselor statements or extensive criminal background checks when reviewing freshmen and transfer students, she said.
But for students like T. — who reapply after being suspended from the University — the department relies more on the honor system.
Memory said only on a case-by-case are returning students asked to undergo a professional background check.
This has occasionally created problems with fraudulent applications, she said.
“Very rarely, but it has happened.”
Uncovering a student’s dishonesty often depends on tips from outside sources who seek out the admissions department.
“If someone makes an allegation against a student, we would ask that they come here and talk to us face to face,” she said. “And we would investigate it.”
“The truth is that there isn’t a true crack (for applicants) to fall through,” Memory said in an email. “All applicants are required to indicate that they promise to uphold our honor code, which prohibits lying.”
The community standards form’s first question is, “Have you been convicted of a crime?”
T. said he was able to honestly answer “no,” because he had agreed, during his suspension for drug and alcohol charges, to serve time in rehabilitation to clear his record of the new, multiple drug-related felony charges.
But other questions on the form are more vague. And when T. came to the question, “Have you otherwise accepted the responsibility for the commission of a crime?,” he said he lied.
“I haven’t been convicted of any of (the charges), so I don’t see why it’s any of their business what I was arrested for,” he said. “You’re innocent until proven guilty in this country.
“Just because I was charged with trafficking cocaine, in the eyes of the law, I didn’t do any of that.”
Memory said the admissions department doesn’t know how many students falsify forms.
“It is really hard to say,” she said. “We just don’t track how many students have lied, honestly.”
Even with the cocaine and alcohol-based suspension on his University record, T. had no problem re-entering the school as a full-time student, where he still is today.
When he returned, he said it didn’t take long for him to get back into his old business of selling drugs to other students.
“I used to sell Xanax,” he said, referring to the anti-anxiety prescription used recreationally to “mellow out.”
“I was getting (pills) for like two, three dollars, buying three, four thousand at a time.
“I was selling three, four pounds of weed a week,” he said. “(I) made a bunch of money,”
Today, T. says he is no longer selling marijuana or prescription pills and that his hardest partying days are behind him.
“I’m not stacking (kilos of cocaine) in my closet,” he said. “I’m not 18 anymore.”
Contact the State & National Editor at state@dailytarheel.com.
