NYU Students 5 Times More Likely To Violate Drug Policies Than Columbia Students

Drug infractions are five times more prevalent at NYU than Columbia, according to the New York Post.

In 2009, NYU recorded 610 violations of the schools drug policy, compared with only 121 at Columbia. The numbers at both schools went down significantly in 2010 despite the presence of a drug ring at the Ivy League institution.

Even though NYU saw a high volume of violations, only two led two arrests -- and none of the Columbia incidents were even reported to police (although a university spokesman said that the school reports all crimes to local police).

NYU spokesman James Devitt told the Post that NYU instructs campus security to only contact police "in the case of significant crimes." Another spokesman, John Beckman, said that when campus security officials find "a very small amount of suspect drugs, they are flushed down the toilet," -- a practice the Public Safety Committee says is not legal.

What do you think? How should drug violations be handled on campus? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Comments

[Pavan Krishnamurthy]

06:39 PM on 03/03/2011

maybe nyu students are five times as likely to get caught

[AbeMartin]

01:22 PM on 01/31/2011

Now we understand why Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen decided to attend NYU rather than Columbia.  Is Charlie Sheen going to apply after he's completed this rehab episode?

[Omar Khan]

03:35 PM on 01/06/2011

nyu is stricker with its drug policy and actually enforces it
if one kid is smoking weed in a room, everyone gets written up.
also nyu has a massive student population compared to columbia

[Josh RageLyfe]

06:01 AM on 01/04/2011

nypd has more important things to worry about than small amounts of "drugs"

[Joe3245]

04:42 AM on 01/04/2011

For me its a simple rule of thumb, if the therapeutically active dose is at least two orders of magnitude greater than the lethal dose, and its not cripplingly addictive then the university should just ignore it (though for state sponsored universities, they probably are required to have draconian anti-drug policies to ensure funding).

[Randy Kreider]

06:22 PM on 01/03/2011

This article is so misleading - especially the headline. First of all, NYU has 3 times as many undergrads as Columbia, which obviously accounts for some part of the larger number of write-ups. Also, 5x as many write-ups doesn't necessarily mean NYU students are violating the policies more - could just mean they're getting caught more.

[Tails]

04:52 AM on 01/04/2011

Darn you and your numbers!

[Kittenesque]

11:05 AM on 01/04/2011

I think HuffPo is trying to show they are fair and balanced because they have been writing up against Columbia for the drugs for a while.

[Evan Seltzer]

05:00 PM on 01/03/2011

O no, college kids are smoking weed, let's use tax dollars to stop such a heinous act...

[Upside]

03:50 PM on 01/03/2011

NYU...muahahaha!