Dive Brief:
- Colleges and universities are increasingly mindful of heroin addiction problems, even though surveys show that less than 1% of students are users, Inside Higher Ed reports.
- Until now, the focus has primarily been on abuse problems with alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs.
- The University of Rochester is one example of a school turning its attention to heroin. A freshman there died of an apparent heroin overdose last month, and heroin overdoses in the Rochester area are up 500% in three years.
Dive Insight:
Inside Higher Ed cites several other examples. At the University of Vermont’s health center, all patients will be screened for hard drug use starting in the fall, thanks to a $10 million state grant for combating alcohol and drug use in 18- to 25-year-olds. The number of heroin users on campus is believed to be on the rise, judging from numbers that show statewide opiate addiction numbers are up 770% since 2000. At Yale University, the school emailed its students this month about concerns that LSD, cocaine, and heroin use was increasing partly because of college students believing that using the drugs occasionally was not dangerous. About 100 colleges have established addiction recovery groups.