Enforcing drug laws
Every university has students who are using illegal drugs, says John Peach, chief of the Kent State Police Department, and the extent of such usage is not always known. “The overall drug picture is whatever you have in your community is what’s available to students,” he says.

And that means everything from marijuana to methamphetamines. “Portage County itself has just about every drug you can imagine in it,” says Lt. Bill Shanafelt of the Kent State Police Department. Marijuana is by far the most common drug among Kent State users, Peach says. He puts the amount of hard drug users at the university at a “very low percentage.”

Drug abuse violations were the only crimes that increased at Kent State last year, according to the 2004 Campus Crime Act Statistics, Peach says. In 2003, the Kent State Police Department issued 71 total drug-related charges. In 2004, there were 91, and 69 were in residence halls.

Shanafelt, who was a member of the Western Portage Drug Task Force for nine years, says the police department works closely with the university’s residence services staff and security guards to enforce drug laws. He even burns marijuana for security staffers to train them to recognize the scent, so they can catch drug use in the residence halls.

Peach says no residence hall has a bigger drug problem than another, but drug abuse is cyclical, flaring up and then dying down after police use undercover officers to make busts. “We go to where we find the biggest disruption to the safety of campus,” Peach says.

Of the 24 officers in the Kent State Police Department, only a small percentage of their time is spent making arrests for drug abuse. Few students “are wrapped up in the drug scene,” on campus, Shanafelt says. “Dopers, dealers and users are very secret,” he says. “And you can’t be very secret living in dorms.”

Most of the drugs are purchased off campus, says Lt. Michelle Lee of the Kent Police Department. But just how much drug trafficking goes on in the city of Kent is largely unknown from police records. “I’m sure it’s bigger than what we think,” she says. “We’re only catching a small percentage.”

The city police follow much of the same enforcement procedures the campus police follow, Lee says, by using plain-clothes officers to make periodic busts. But enforcing drug laws is not a routine or substantial part of their workday.

A phone call away
Drug abuse in Kent is a “huge problem” for the community, says Deborah Neuhart, emergency services manager for Townhall II, a counseling service and medical clinic at 155 N. Water St.

According to data from Townhall II’s Emergency Services Department, 115 people called Townhall II’s 24-hour helpline reporting heroin abuse between Oct. 10, 2004, and Oct. 9, 2005. The previous year, the center received two calls concerning heroin use. Counselors have no way of knowing why such an increase occurred, Neuhart says. “We lag behind in what’s actually going on in the community,” she says. “Once it starts to be a problem, then it comes across our radar.”

Alcohol, marijuana and crack are the three main drugs that people are seeking treatment for now, but that may change next year, she says.
From 2004 to 2005, 24 people called the center reporting marijuana use. The highest number of calls, 128, were from people reporting problems with
alcohol.

Alcohol is the main drug Townhall II deals with, says Rob Young, an outpatient
services manager for Townhall II, but drugs like heroin remain a concern.

“Heroin and the opiate use has increased,” Young says. “We still are getting more folks that are getting an opiate or heroin addiction.”