By Stephen Oduntan-
Californian State University is rife with drugs and alcohol abuse, The Eye Of Media.Com can reveal.
The academically bright collection of teenagers is marked with a growing crowd of drug users who also revel in plenty of booze during college hours. The cocktail of drug and alcohol use often leads to a series of saucy sex sessions; many times in full view of plenty of entertained onlookers. I embarked on a journey for The Eye Of Media.Com to this supposedly exciting educational institution, filled with both rebels and bright minds. What I learnt and discovered was equally revealing and disturbing.
As the evening settled on California State University, Long Beach, the contagious excitement became increasingly apparent. Two college women dressed in eye-catching tight one-piece dresses, walked in stiletto heels, or at best waddled along the residence halls, chatting and giggling, with a hint in their voices echoing a night descending into debauchery. It’s a Thursday, and the “weekend” begins on Thursday evenings. And for many students, drinking can be a favorite weekend activity in the campus dormitories.
Anyone familiar with on-campus housing at universities, needn’t bother reading further than this paragraph. You undoubtedly heard or even witnessed stories about the average college dorm experience sprinkled with parties, and excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages melted into mischief and mayhem.
The university does limit consumption of alcohol to designated areas, but campus officials would have better luck lifting the ban of pork in Saudi Arabia than making students adhere to the school’s alcohol policy, which must comply with California State Law—strictly limited to persons 21 years of age or older.
The fact is the chaos and drama associated with alcohol in college dorms could prompt various efforts to resurrect prohibition.
On a more serious note, however, one common theme echoed by the people interviewed for this article was that first-year college students bring along with them a newfound sense of freedom. For the first time, they are the sole persons responsible for their day-to-day lives. And with this freedom, they are likely to find themselves experimenting with all sorts of reprehensive conduct that would leave a religious pundit shaking his or her head in disbelief.
“It gets crazy when Rush Week starts to happen in the dorms,” said, Joanna Hill, glancing up from the laptop she set on the table before her, and who asked to use a pseudonym (as did everyone else quoted in this article) to protect her identity.
When asked why Rush Week, Hill replied:
“it’s when sororities and fraternities have freshmen, sophomores, and juniors rush parties. It’s the ideal environment,” she explained, “for students to experiment alcohol, some for the very first time,” presumably so they fall to the ground in a stupor. Alcohol abuse is not the only vice lubricating the dorms social atmosphere.
Paul Nelson, who beamed a broad and mischievous smile, noted that alcohol consumption barely tells the college experience. He told The Eye Of Media.Com:
“Everybody not only likes to drink in the dorms, but they also do all sorts of drugs,” he said;
his baseball cap tipped to the side of his head while holding his skateboard.
He added that if a strange smell permeates through the dorms, it is most likely someone smoking cannabis.
Nelson generally starts and ends every sentence with the word dude.
“Dude, everybody is always fxxxxx up on some substance. Honestly, dude, pick your poison, dude. Whether it’s “psychedelics,” he continued, “prescription pills, ecstasy, or people coked out, or people always on Xanax. Dude, I once witnessed people smoking meth in the bathroom dorms. Yep. Inside the bathroom,” he reiterated. He said as for him, smoking cannabis was his preferred choice of drug.
At the same time, Emma Jones, a student who works as a resident advisor noted that she’d “never heard of anyone doing more than weed on campus.”
She warned there are repercussions for violating CSULB’s alcohol and drug policy. Besides risking expulsion, a student’s transgression, if extreme, could have far more consequences beyond the university institution walls because it could end up on the student’s record.
Speaking about this, Nelson said, “I was always permafried (slang for being stoned) in the dorms. I was just constantly smoking weed, dude,” he added, his eyes half closed, a sign he’d been smoking cannabis minutes before the interview.
Richard Goodwin of CSULB’s University Police told The Eye Of Media.Com that law enforcement is very much aware of the campus culture regarding alcohol and drug use, but also noted it hasn’t risen to the level where there has been a significant volume of calls to the campus police responding to drug activity in the dorms.
“We don’t deal with drug calls in the dorms on a regular basis where we’re over there every night like it’s a madhouse of drugs flying everywhere,” said Goodwin. But added, “I’d be naïve if I said we don’t have any drugs in the dorms because I know that we do.”
Goodwin said the university has a zero-tolerance policy for possession, sale/and or use of illegal drugs and said they’d been incidents where “student essentially wind up throwing their whole college career out the window because they were arrested for dealing drugs in the dorms.”
SEXUAL CONDUCT
If students engaging in illegal narcotics on campus was a problem, there’s also the issue of risky sexual behavior as well.
As one college student recounted an incident during her freshman year in the dorms that could potentially be used for a porn movie script. Jessica Finch, of California State University, Dominguez Hills recalled an evening when she and a group of friends had just returned to the dorms after a night of partying. They were mildly inebriated. The corridor lights were turned off. Suddenly, they could hear something that sounded like someone moaning. They instinctively went and investigated the mysterious sound, seemingly coming from the common lounge. And there they were:
“This girl and this guy having sex. Out in the open for everyone to see,” said Finch, her white teeth gleaming as she recounted the episode in vivid detail. Although the two lovebirds were aware that fellow students were watching them, they continued having passionate sex in plain view. “I swear to God; they gave us a free show. They didn’t even care when we started recording them with our smartphones. They had no shame.”
“If some parents had any idea what their children, particularly their daughters, were getting up to in college, it would tear families apart,”
Jon Snow, a senior linguistics, and Spanish major college student, told The Eye Of Media.Com
“There’s sex everywhere,” said Snow. “I know of [students] having casual sex with one another, fully knowing they are never going to see each other again after graduating from college.”
The 27-year-old undergrad added that the college dorms are a breeding ground for poor judgment. He said he distinctly recalls frequent “fuck parties” and students indulging in unprotected sex.
“There’s a culture of hedonism,” said Snow, “and it’s very prevalent.”
GONORRHEA
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that showed cases of gonorrhea in the U.S. had spiked by 13 percent between 2014 and 2015. Cases of syphilis rose by 19 percent. And the number of cases of chlamydia grew to 1.5 million — the highest level the CDC has ever recorded. The report also showed most cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea were among people age 15 to 24. Most college students in the U.S. are in this age demographic—18 and 25 years old.
All in all, Jones, the R.A., said it should be emphasized that :
“We don’t judge anyone. We are mainly a resource for residents to talk to. If they want to act wild and party, we advise them to do it off campus.”
Carlifornian State University has many intelligent and ambitious students, but need to restrict their drugs and alcohol culture to other locations. The University is popular for its vibrant social activities and its strong intellectual base, but a reputation for wayward practices will not do its image much favours in the eyes of responsible parents.