“We always gonna have alcohol and drugs in the residence halls and apartments. Every campus does in this country,” Rian Rabideau, the Associate Director of Residence Life and Dining Services (RLDS), said.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the name for dried leaves, flowers, stems and seeds of the plant, called Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica. This plant contains mind-altering chemicals. Even though marijuana is considered to be harmless and is legalized in some states, it is illegal to own a controlled substance (unless it was purchased with a valid prescription) in the state of Wyoming.
Drug abuse in the state of Wyoming is regulated by “Wyoming Controlled Substances Act,” which is explained in details at the Student Legal Services website.
“UW REGULATION 2-39: Alcohol and Other Drugs Policy” and “Appendix A to UW Regulation 2-39” prohibit the use of marijuana on campus. RLDS regulate this issue with “Apartments & Residence Halls Policies 2017-2018” and “Policies and Procedures 2016-17.”
“All students are going through orientation in cowboy connect and what is called a safety panel, which is performed by the Dean of Students Office, UWPD, Residence Life, where they talk about alcohol, drugs and things, like sexual misconduct, as well,” Rabideau said. “So, all students attend that and then we do floor meetings at the beginning of each semester to talk about our hall procedures about alcohol and drugs.”
Throughout the semester, students who live in the dormitories smell the odor of marijuana in the hallways almost every day and cases are underreported.
“When you are coming to my room, my whole floor literally smells like marijuana,” *Andrew said. “I have 20-25 friends on the floor and all are smoking. No one of them was caught. We are smart.”
*Lilly said, “At one of the floors of our hall I can smell the odor of marijuana every day. Every single day. I don’t think RAs try to prevent it somehow, because it smells really strong and difficult not to notice it.”
Some residents have noticed the police in the lobby late at night.
“Well, I have smelled it like two, or three times in the hall, where my room is,” *Patrick said. “Two-three times in the last exact month. Usually it happens, when I arrive late to my dorm. I have never really seen anyone being, once, when I arrived late, I saw the police interviewing someone in the lobby, but I don’t know whether it was about weed.
All the citations on drug abuse on the campus can be found in the UW Police Department Daily Activities Report, however, there are few reports to the UW Police Department.
“If you check up daily activity report from the police, you’d see that we report that [drug abuse] all the time,” Rabideau said. “And I think we have at least two to three times a week where police is coming in to address those issues. So, yes and we have citations issued in all the halls regularly.”
UW Police Department Daily Activities Report shows that in November there were only five cited cases, when marijuana was used in UW housing.
Smoke detectors, that are supposed to respond to the smoke from marijuana, do not go off in the halls, or in the apartments.
“Smoke detectors are able to detect the smoke from smoking weed, both in apartments and halls,” Rabideau said. “We check our detectors every month and we have a log of all the times the alarms go off in each apartment unit. It happens frequently. It’s not always because of marijuana smoke, though. It could be from cooking. And that is the majority what happens. But yes, we had an apartment alarms go off due to smoking cigarettes and smoking pot, that police are directed to.”
Rabideau said that he is not sure, whether smoke detectors react on the vapor from vapes and shisha.
“I guess, the smoke of the vape is cool in comparison with marijuana,” *Andrew said. “Tobacco smoke is hot. So, smoke detectors do not recognize the vapor. So, I smoke vape in my room freely.”
Students who tried to smoke marijuana in the UW housing facilities, say the fire alarm doesn’t turn on when they are smoking pot, even right next to the detector.
“Firstly, we were afraid to smoke nearby the detector, so we were doing it in the bathroom,” *John said. “After some time we started getting closer and closer. Now, when we realized, that alarm doesn’t switch on, we started smoking in the living room and kitchen. Nothing ever happened.”
*Andrew said, “We had a case, when my friend was smoking marijuana in his room, and the fire alarm came off. The firefighters came in. But the guy was never caught.”
According to the Daily Activities Report, throughout the semester there were only three cases when students were caught smoking marijuana and neither citation mentions that it turned on the fire alarm.
“It’s something that I’ve seen both in apartments and in the dorms,” *Patrick said. “I’m not sure whether people know how to turn them off, but smoke doesn’t affect them. In general, I’ve heard stories about smoking in the apartments, and the actual smoke detector not coming off.”
The underreported odor of marijuana that appears in the hallways almost every evening is bothering students who are not used to it.
“Actually, people, who smoke and are high, don’t bother me, because I don’t communicate with them, but the smell is really strong everywhere,” *Lilly said. “As for me, personally, I cannot stand the smell of any cigarettes, marijuana, or something like that. So, for me the situation with this odor is awful.”
