Ah, 4/20, the holiday that’s probably only appropriate to celebrate in college because showing up to work with orange Cheetos dust peppering your face just isn’t acceptable when you’re in the real world. So to be honest, we’re kind of surprised you—notably social readers—have landed on our site today. Maybe you have plans to meet up later with friends for some not-so-legal fun on the lakefill. Regardless, in honor of this college-only holiday, we decided to look at the stats on drug-related events on campus. We threw in stats from UChicago and WashU to see how we stack up against our top-tier Midwestern peers. Our findings after the jump.
Statistically speaking, the likelihood you’ll get arrested for drug law violations is slim on campus. After all, we had a total of 29 reported violations in 2009. But, on a more cautionary note, Northwestern has seen a 263 percent increase in drug related arrests between 2008 and 2009, and even more startling, arrests have increased 14-fold since 2007. So, it seems pretty clear that NUPD has stepped up enforcement in drug-related violations in the past few years. Our Midwestern peers haven’t seen such dramatic increases in the number of drug-related arrests over the past three years. UChicago, unsurprisingly, had the lowest average of drug-related arrests (1.5) and referrals (6.33), where police allow the university to consider possible punishments rather than utilizing the legal system. So what do these kids do for fun? WashU falls in the middle for drug arrests with an average of 7.66 over the past three years, but has a significantly higher average of drug referrals (44) than Northwestern and UChicago. So, we could end with the easy Nancy Regan-esque advice of “Just say no,” but we know you better so we’ll say: “We’ll see you at BK.”
