Georgetown Explained: Marijuana policies – The Georgetown Voice

Editor’s Word: All interviewed RAs have been granted anonymity as Residential Dwelling workers usually are not permitted to talk to the press about their roles.

Washington, D.C. has relaxed its marijuana legal guidelines considerably lately, reflecting a altering understanding of drug security and fairness. Georgetown College’s official drug insurance policies, nonetheless, haven’t adopted swimsuit.

Following years of advocacy, the residents of D.C. voted overwhelmingly in favor of Initiative 71 in 2014, which legalized the possession (but not sale) of restricted portions of leisure marijuana for these 21 years or older. Because of the drug’s standing as a Schedule I narcotic, nonetheless, Georgetown’s drug insurance policies haven’t modified, and marijuana stays banned on campus even for medical use.

“Whereas the District of Columbia has modified marijuana legal guidelines lately, possession, use, or distribution of marijuana, together with medical marijuana, stays unlawful underneath federal regulation. Georgetown’s insurance policies and enforcement for each alcohol and drug violations have remained constant,” a college spokesperson wrote in an electronic mail to the Voice.

Whereas faculties that obtain federal funding, together with Georgetown, are required to keep up marijuana bans, they’ve discretion over the way in which they implement it on campus. At colleges like Williams Faculty, Syracuse College, Rutgers College, the College of Vermont, and Bates Faculty—all of which lie in jurisdictions which have decriminalized marijuana—sanctions were revised after decriminalization to make their marijuana and alcohol penalties comparable.

College students face far-reaching sanctions if discovered responsible of drug violations. Georgetown’s continued stringent marijuana coverage impacts college students who’re employed on campus, together with these whose housing is linked to employment, like residential assistants (RAs). Disparate disciplinary measures for medication as in comparison with alcohol have inequitable results on pupil educational statuses and eligibilities to check overseas.

RAs additionally face tough choices when dealing with drug incidents. For alcohol circumstances, RAs write up stories and observe the disposal of alcohol in their very own residential halls. In circumstances the place RAs suspect marijuana use or possession, they’re instructed to instantly name campus police.

At Georgetown, insurance policies concerning the use and possession of marijuana proceed to be stricter than these for alcohol. A primary-time alcohol offender, for instance, would face no probation, a $50 nice, and 5 work sanction hours, in line with the newest Sanctioning Guide from the Workplace of Scholar Conduct (OSC)—which handles all alleged pupil alcohol and drug coverage violations.

A primary time unlawful drug offender of any sort (together with marijuana), alternatively, would face two semesters of disciplinary probation, a $100 nice, and 5 work sanction hours. By the second offense, a pupil faces possible suspension—a punishment they might not face after three consecutive alcohol violations.

Punishment for each drug and alcohol offenses additionally embrace an academic mission, which may encompass participation in alcohol or drug education schemes, writing apology letters, or involvement in mentoring packages.

RAs are at specific threat if reported for any private drug violations. “We’ve seen some situations the place residential assistants have been fired from their job, and that results in them dropping their meal plan, their housing,” Director of Georgetown’s Scholar Advocacy Workplace (SAO) Ben Gaver (COL ’22) mentioned.

Many RAs depend on the room and board advantages, in addition to the monetary assist readjustment, that include the job. Those that do face not solely monetary, but additionally educational uncertainty in the event that they lose their advantages, as housing insecure college students face considerably lower graduation rates than their housing safe counterparts.

Beforehand, OSC drug convictions resulted in disqualification from monetary assist. The Division of Schooling announced that as of June 2021, these drug offenses will not disqualify college students from receiving federal monetary assist—an announcement which was echoed by the college registrar in a Sept. 28 email.

In line with Gaver, if any pupil is reported for a drug violation, they’ll attain out to SAO, and a pupil advocate will seek the advice of the coed on how you can finest defend themselves and write an announcement of protection to ship to the OSC in preparation for the adjudication course of.

Disparities within the therapy of marijuana and alcohol start with the reporting course of. RAs are instructed of their guide that in the event that they “suspect the use or possession of medicine based mostly on visible proof and/or a suspicious order,” they need to contact GUPD instantly and let GUPD deal with the incident. For alcohol, alternatively, RAs usually are not required to contact GUPD and might deal with the incident with a higher diploma of discretion.

A number of RAs have expressed issues in regards to the effectiveness, fairness, and security of the requirement to instantly contact GUPD. One RA famous they felt uncomfortable after they felt compelled to report a pupil to GUPD in the course of the first week on the job.

“The difficulty with the drug coverage is that if RAs aren’t excited about the implications for the residents that they’re reporting, then they are going to simply observe that instruction and name GUPD,” they mentioned, and famous that college students of shade specifically face extra threat from a name to GUPD.

The RA requested in regards to the drug coverage throughout coaching as a result of there isn’t any different steerage on coping with drug-related incidents than contacting GUPD. “I used to be a little bit stunned that there was just one instruction, whereas for the alcohol there’s an entire record of them,” they mentioned. “I don’t assume it’s acceptable in any respect to simply name GUPD instantly.”

The vast majority of GUPD interactions with college students contain medication or alcohol, and GUPD has a years-long history of racial bias, discrimination, and profiling. Whereas officers are required to endure anti-bias coaching, issues about racial profiling persist, particularly amongst college students of shade. Within the U.S. nationally, Black individuals are practically four times as prone to be arrested for marijuana-related offenses, regardless of equal utilization charges by their white counterparts. The OSC has not launched demographic information displaying the racial composition of these convicted of drug offenses at Georgetown, however most of the sanctions related to drug offenses pose a higher menace to lower-income college students, who’re disproportionately college students of shade.

Throughout RA coaching, one other RA expressed their concern with the drug coverage to a group director through an electronic mail shared with the Voice. Within the electronic mail, they requested group administrators if extra communal, empathetic responses to drug issues might be thought of, as a substitute of the punitive coverage of instantly calling GUPD. As of final month, they haven’t acquired a response.

One other RA expressed concern about GUPD’s means to soundly deal with harmful conditions of extreme alcohol consumption or drug use. “I actually don’t have any want to deliver GUPD into my residential group except I completely know that they’re going to be helpful or if there’s one thing that I simply can’t reply to and I have to name in any person else,” they mentioned.

They added that the present drug coverage is just too transient; your entire RA drug coverage totals lower than 200 phrases, and a few RAs report feeling uncertain of how you can finest hold college students secure with out damaging their disciplinary file or profession prospects, or exposing them to GUPD.

One RA defined the predicament virtually all RAs face: observe protocol, and defend their very own employment and monetary well-being—or refuse to name GUPD and threat penalties. These penalties for an RA failing to contact GUPD embrace a written warning for the primary violation, probation for the second, and sure termination for the third, in line with the Resident Assistant’s Handbook.

Drug violations’ connection to meal plans, housing, and monetary assist makes drug coverage a difficulty of fairness for RAs and college students alike.

“Quite a lot of RAs do the job to allow them to get free housing,” an RA mentioned. “That the punishment is a lack of monetary assist feels focused.”

That RA has since discovered that sending a message to the ground group chat, or just asking college students to cool down, cut back the presence of smoke, and do away with the marijuana, has been efficient in minimizing disturbances and elevated belief between themselves and their residents.

The adjudication course of additionally differs based mostly on the coed’s residential standing. To be convicted for coverage violations off campus, a pupil’s guilt should be confirmed “extra possible than not.” For on-campus incidents, proof should be “clear and convincing.”

“So there’s a a lot increased normal for burden of proof for on-campus violations, versus off-campus,” Gaver mentioned.

Earlier than 2012, the burden of proof for on-campus and off-campus violations of any sort had been each “extra possible than not,” and the OSC may extra simply and with much less proof convict college students on campus as they do now. Following pupil advocacy, the on-campus burden of proof for OSC convictions was raised. The off-campus burden of proof was not, nonetheless, partially as a result of college students off-campus reside subsequent to D.C. residents outside the university community. 

This semester, SAO is advocating for elevating the burden of proof for college students residing off-campus to match that of on-campus violations. If SAO succeeds, there would should be “clear and convincing” proof for a pupil to be convicted of a noise, drug, or alcohol violation. This could make college students residing off-campus much less prone to be convicted of Code of Conduct violations and enhance equitability based mostly on residential standing within the adjudication course of.

The official drug sanctioning coverage within the Code of Scholar Conduct additionally equates marijuana to different unlawful substances akin to opioids and narcotics, regardless of their differing authorized standing in D.C. 

Though these official penalties are listed as the identical within the Code of Scholar Conduct, in apply, the OSC differentiates harsher medication from comparatively safer ones, like marijuana, when disciplining college students.“From what I’ve been instructed from OSC, more durable medication are adjudicated another way. Nevertheless, inside the sanctioning information and in addition inside the Code of Scholar Conduct there isn’t any distinction between the 2,” Gaver mentioned.

SAO has proposed adjustments to the OSC’s sanctioning information to replicate totally different disciplinary measures for marijuana use and different narcotics. Final spring, 239 college students signed a petition calling for the college to develop a separate coverage for marijuana—punitively equal to alcohol—as a substitute of lumping it in with unlawful medication. The petition identified that quite a few peer establishments in states that had decriminalized marijuana possession additionally deal with alcohol and marijuana violations with comparable sanctions. In April 2021, the GUSA Senate passed a decision calling on the OSC to implement this proposal.

Though there was little initiative from the college and he acknowledges that change would require a big period of time, sources, and authorized work on the a part of the college, Gaver hopes that their change will make Georgetown’s insurance policies higher replicate present D.C. regulation.

“We proposed to the Workplace of Scholar Conduct separating the drug sanctioning to primarily make sanctioning for marijuana and alcohol the identical,” Gaver mentioned. “They usually had been open to our concepts.”

Because the nationwide push for federal legalization of marijuana continues, Georgetown might rethink its present insurance policies. Till then, the college’s marijuana insurance policies leaves college students questioning the inequalities of punitive approaches to drug use. 

“I’m the one that can name in a pupil at any time and say, ‘I think them of utilizing medication,’” one RA mentioned. “That immediately will lead to GUPD coming and forcing their means into the room.”