No Laced Pot Cases Since UHS Warning

Since the Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO) issued a warning last week via e-mail to all first years regarding marijuana tainted with cocaine circulating on Boston-area campuses, University Health Services (UHS) knows of no cases of students suffering from smoking contaminated pot, according to Director of UHS David S. Rosenthal ’59.

He said that no cases had checked in with UHS, and that public health organizations had not contacted him. “I haven’t received any further updates from my colleagues or the Department of Public Health,” he said.

The e-mail sent to first-years was based on a warning on UHS’s website.

“Our office thinks it important to make first year students aware of potential risks when those risks are brought to our attention” said Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley “Ibby” Nathans. “In the past, we have made first-year students aware of similar concerns regarding so-called designer drugs and so-called date rape drugs.”

The original warning that tainted pot was circulating on college campuses came from the College Health Initiative at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Rosenthal issued the warning after consulting with the Initiative.

“I was told that other people put [warnings] on their [websites]” Rosenthal said.

The director of the Initiative, Ian Wong, said he knows of no students that have been or are being treated in the Boston-area for using the laced drugs. Nor does he know where the tainted marijuana came from, or why it was tainted in the first place.

“We’re just at the beginning of this,” Wong said.

Wong hypothesized that the laced marijuana may produce a “different kind of high,” but stressed that this is just speculation. Wong said he did not know what a mixture of cocaine, a stimulant, and marijuana, a depressant, might do to a person.

The Initiative first learned of the laced pot from students at a Boston-area college. Wong declined to name which campus the students came from.

The focus of the Initiative’s efforts is on prevention.

“We’re just letting students know” Wong said. “I’m hoping that those who choose to do marijuana know what they’re doing.”

In that spirit, Rosenthal indicated that UHS would keep the warning on its website for at least “a couple weeks.”

Some students say that the warning has not affected their habits.

According to numbers recently released by UHS, more students have come to UHS for alcohol-related incidents. But Rosenthal said, this may not be bad sign.

“The level of drug and alcohol abuse may be the same,” he said. “There’s no longer the concern that [UHS] will be calling the Ad Board.”