Marijuana arrests on campus continue to rise

Marijuana arrests on campus are rising like smoke.

The LSU Police Department has made 38 drug arrests this semester, and a majority involved marijuana.

LSUPD spokesman Maj. Lawrence Rabalais said the number of marijuana arrests has significantly increased since the implementation of the Crime Interdiction Unit in 2008.

Formed in response to the murder of two University doctoral students in December 2007, the CIU is made up of four officers who patrol campus in plain clothing. Their goal is to stop and identify suspicious people, Rabalais said. Drug arrests nearly tripled between 2007 and 2008 — climbing from 56 to 152.

"Since we have enacted the Criminal Interdiction Unit, they are making more stops for probable causes such as expired license plates, speeding and red light [violations]," Rabalais said. "In doing so, it has become more apparent to them — through the number of increased violator stops — that people are using marijuana."

Rabalais said if an officer smells marijuana during a traffic violation stop, he or she will
question the driver.

"Typically, the persons admit to either having the marijuana in the vehicle or having smoked the marijuana — subsequently giving consent to search," Rabalais said. "Most people — whether they have marijuana in there or not — allow the officers to search."

If someone smoked marijuana before driving and smells because of it, officers cannot arrest the driver for marijuana possession. A driver can also refuse to give consent to search, but officers can still detain the driver and get a search warrant.

Rabalais said LSUPD recently switched from using verbal consent to search to written consent, where a person signs a statement saying the police are allowed to search his or her property. He said this rule eliminates the "he said, she said" issues that may arise in court.

Many marijuana violations occur in residence halls too. Rabalais said officers can only search rooms if they have probable cause — like smoke billowing from the room, for example. If there's more than one person living in a room, officers can only search the consented person's portion of the room.

"We have laws to follow — we have the Constitution to follow," Rabalais said. "A lot of people don't understand that. We can't arbitrarily just search your room or stop you for any reason without that probable cause."

Eric Norman, Student Advocacy and Accountability associate dean, said there is a "separate but parallel process" when students are caught with marijuana. A student generally has to deal with the criminal and academic aspect of the violation.

Norman said students aren't normally expelled for marijuana violations unless they are caught with a felony amount — 28 grams — or have multiple offenses. Students caught will normally take courses, become part of a group, are suspended for one to two years to clean up or — if more serious — will seek input or output treatment.

Norman said his office typically receives incident reports from police as a starting point for student treatment. Most student drug violations involve marijuana and Adderall, Norman said.

"The point for us is to make sure that they're going to change the habit," Norman said. "Most students don't roll back with another one, and if they do, they probably have an addiction issue that we need to resolve." 

Rabalais said LSUPD's goal is to prevent students and other citizens from using again.
"The bulk of what we're dealing with is if someone's got a gram or two," Norman said. "We just want to make sure we turn around the behavior."

According to the CORE Institute's 2007 Drug and Alcohol Survey, 23.7 percent of LSU students used marijuana in the past year, 13.5 percent used marijuana within the past 30 days and 8.5 percent use illegal drugs other than marijuana.

"That's our goal in police work — whether we arrest you or let you off with a warning or a traffic ticket, our goal is to make sure that you do not repeat that type of behavior," Rabalais said.

As for legalizing marijuana, Norman is torn.

"I am still debating this in my mind," Norman said. "It might ease up our court system, but the adversarial health effects of the marijuana use may offset any gains in that regard.
Marijuana is a gateway drug, so if legalizing the use or possession increases the use of other drugs with increased psychological and [physiological] addiction issues, I would not be in favor."

Rabalais said he is against legalization.

"It's a controlled, dangerous substance," Rabalais said. "I think if you legalize it, at that point, where does it stop? What will be next?"



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Contact Kyle Bove at kbove@lsureveille.com