After Ohio University implemented a new alcohol policy last year, students seemed to have traded beer bottles for bongs.Although alcohol violations decreased significantly since last Fall Quarter, marijuana violations doubled in the same time.
Kent Smith, vice president of Student Affairs, introduced two potential marijuana sanctioning protocols to Student Senate at its meeting last night. Smith, who will ultimately decide between the two, said he hopes to have a final protocol in place by the end of Fall Quarter.
Protocol A classifies alcohol and marijuana offenses similarly. For example, if a student was charged with an alcohol violation and then charged with a marijuana violation, it would be considered a second offense.
Protocol B treats alcohol and marijuana violations as separate charges. If a student was charged with an alcohol violation and later charged with a marijuana violation, it would act as a first time violation for marijuana and not a second offense.
The protocols also differ in the way alcohol and marijuana intervention programs are handled. The Protocol A program would cover both marijuana and alcohol while Protocol B would be tailored to the specific offense.
The Review and Standards Committee, charged with making recommendations on the new marijuana protocol, proposed the adoption of policy A after a 4-3 vote. The 3 votes against Protocol A were from student members of the committee ' all other members are faculty and administration.
Smith brought the protocols to Senate to get more student input, he said.
In a straw poll ' an informal vote to gauge opinion ' Senate voted in favor of adopting Protocol B. A resolution will be drafted for next week's meeting to formally endorse a specific policy.
The reasons people abuse alcohol and marijuana are very different
said Drew Goland, internal chief of staff. If we're serious about making a difference in people's lives with these intervention programs they need to be detailed to what happened. I think if you're putting alcohol and marijuana in the same category you're giving them a lot of information that doesn't apply to them and doesn't help them.
Footing the Halloween billSmith said residence halls had 1 772 registered guests over Halloween weekend
creating $44
300 in revenue. He added that 15 percent ' a little over $6
000 ' will be given to student programming on campus
most likely in residence halls. The remaining money will go to cover debt incurred by the university over the weekend.More mayoral candidatesFollowing the appearance of Councilman Paul Wiehl
D-1st Ward
before Senate last week
fellow mayoral candidates Ed Baum and Sergey Kahn spoke at Senate last night.
Baum spoke about the importance of growth in Athens and supported festivals such as Halloween and selling Jeff Hill to OU.
Kahn
a senior OU photography major
