Colleges Embrace Streetwise Tactics to Prevent Substance-Abuse Deaths

When Reed College students obtain an illicit drug, a campus group will lend them a chemical testing kit designed to detect dangerous adulterants in whatever they are about to consume. The private college, while strictly banning illegal drug use, nonetheless tolerates student-to-student distribution of the kits as a way to reduce the likelihood of students inadvertently poisoning themselves. When Dickinson College hosts major concerts in its auditorium, students who feel ill from consuming alcohol or illicit drugs can head to a designated area to drink water and rest while watched by sober students and emergency medical technicians.