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The realities of drug use on college campuses
By Bethany Osborn
Illustration by Raleigh Anderson
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There’s a photograph of a boy. He’s 18, in his first semester at the University of Arkansas; his arms are cradled around two girls. He wears a wrinkled, black suit and a striped tie of garnet and gold. The attire is emblematic of a Pi Kappa Alpha pledge on game day. The boy, with two of his fraternity brothers, each separated by a pretty girl, dons a large smile, the kind of smile that characterizes a person. Anyone could tell he spent most of his life smiling. It is unlikely that he, his brothers or any of the girls imagined that the picture would end up anywhere other than the Instagram feeds of their peers. The photograph now appears on a website established in the boy’s memory.
Will Doerhoff died of a heroin overdose Oct. 14, 2016, becoming a victim of America’s opioid crisis. The label is used nationally to describe the growing number of Americans dying each year from overdosing on opiates, a group of drugs home to prescription painkillers and heroin. A sharp increase in overdose deaths over the last 10 years has sparked nationwide conversations, resurfacing the uncomfortable awareness that America has a drug problem. President Donald Trump declared opioid crisis a public health crisis. Stories like Will’s prove that opioid use is a fact of life everywhere.
In 2015, 52,404 Americans died of a drug overdose with over 20,000 attributed to prescription opiates and nearly 13,000 to heroin alone, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Arkansas contributed 392 deaths to the 52,000 in 2015, deeming the state statistically insignificant in terms of the opioid crisis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though stories like Will’s are rare, they are representative of the fact that drugs exist and are readily available on the University of Arkansas campus.
In May 2014, Will graduated from Catholic High School for Boys in Little Rock and started classes at the University of Arkansas that fall. Being the largest college in the state, the University of Arkansas has earned a reputation of being a party school, particularly in factions of Greek Life, said Scott Doerhoff, Will’s father. Will’s parents didn’t want him to go to school in Fayetteville for that very reason.
Will went through the rush process and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity that fall, which is where he was first exposed to prescription drugs.
“Will shared with me that a lot of the kids during the pledge semester were taking Adderall to try to keep up,” Scott said.
Adderall is a stimulant drug used to treat individuals with attention-deficit or hyperactivity disorders, but it has a growing presence on college campuses. Students who attend college are more likely to use Adderall for nonmedical purposes than their peers who aren’t in college, according to a survey from the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
Stimulants like Adderall are some of the most commonly abused prescription drugs on college campuses because students use Adderall as a study aid to improve their focus.
“I’ve gone to study for finals with college students, and these are people I wouldn’t see as using drugs,” said Trent, a University of Arkansas student. “And they’ll just get out Adderall and take it in front of pretty much complete strangers.” Trent’s last name has been omitted to protect his privacy.
Trent suspects Adderall is the most commonly used drug on campus based on his own experiences and knowledge of his peers. University data suggests otherwise.
In addition to marijuana and Adderall, students at the University of Arkansas are recreationally using the prescription drug Xanax, according to the UAPD crime log. Xanax is commonly used to treat anxiety and depression by slowing brain activity. When mixed with alcohol, it can slow the user’s heart rate to dangerous levels, according to NIDA.
“We’re not unique,” said Asher Morgan, the substance abuse prevention coordinator at the University of Arkansas. “All of our data shows that we’re pretty much in line with national averages.”
The University of Arkansas has little data on drugs other than alcohol and marijuana because those cases largely go unreported, Morgan said.
“Does it exist here? Yes. Is it at the epidemic state? I would say no,” Morgan said.
As Will’s freshman year progressed, his struggle with prescription drugs was unknown to his parents but was evident in his declining GPA. Will’s parents assumed he was depressed.
After Will died, Scott and his wife discovered that Will started to use prescription opiates during the spring semester of his freshman year. A member of Pi Kappa Alpha who had already been dismissed because of drug-related issues was readmitted to the fraternity and initiated Will’s drug use. In a matter of three months, Will had developed an opiate addiction.
Scott speculates his son began to take prescription drugs under the assumption that because they were prescribed by a doctor, they were safe to take.
“We talked extensively to our kids about drugs.” Scott said. “To our knowledge Will had never taken anything before, but prescription drugs were different. They were just considered medication that came from a safe place.”
Eventually Will’s unacceptable grades resulted in the loss of his allowance, which prevented him from being able to afford prescription drugs, so he sought a cheaper alternative.
“Textbook,” Scott said, describing his son’s path that led to a lethal dose of heroin, which he purchased online.
Despite cases like Will, college campuses continue to focus educational resources on alcohol and marijuana-related misconduct because they are more visible and result in more documented cases of use, said Capt. Gary Crain of UAPD. Usually law enforcement doesn’t get involved with prescription drug incidents unless students overdose.
“We found everything out after my son had already overdosed on heroin,” Scott remembers.
This is why most of the efforts to prevent drug abuse on campuses have been focused on education. The Substance Education and Alcohol Resources office at the University of Arkansas targets groups of students in residence halls, Greek Life and the University Perspectives class that each University of Arkansas freshman is required to take. Members of the office teach students about the dangers of drug use and offer resources for students seeking sobriety.
Drug use on college campuses – excluding alcohol and marijuana – remains invisible because acknowledgement and honest conversations with students aren’t taking place.
“It takes a level of vulnerability that some students still aren’t comfortable with,” Morgan said.
In Morgan’s experience, many students are incapable of being honest about their drug use because of the stigma. Most students come from a background where there was an expectation that they would never abuse drugs.
“One of the most rewarding things for me is when I can get a student to engage in an actual conversation with me,” Morgan said.
Trent didn’t start using drugs regularly until he arrived at the University of Arkansas. Like many of his peers, he said he smoked marijuana in high school, but once at college, he quickly became acquainted with the easy accessibility of various types of drugs and the desire to experiment.
“I was curious, and it was readily available. So I figured why not,” Trent said, referencing his experimentation with LSD.
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic drug that alters the user’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings, according to the NIDA.
“It breaks down mental barriers and helps me see who I am in the most objective light,” University of Arkansas student Tony said. Tony’s last name has also been omitted in order to protect his privacy.
Tony likes taking LSD because it allows him to reflect on his life.
“It makes things funnier. I have a quicker wit,” he said. “Basically it’s having higher cognitive power with less cognitive effort.”
Both Trent and Tony said their drug use got in the way of their classes, and for Trent, it was a wake-up call. He recognized an abrupt shift in his daily behavior. He had done well in high school, but now he was blowing off classes to either do drugs with his friends or recover from the drugs that had become a part of his life without his own conscious realization.
Trent went from being a 4.0 student in high school to failing all of his classes in a matter of months. Realizing it was a combination of his drug use and depression, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay at the University of Arkansas if something didn’t change. Trent recalled thinking nothing could hurt him at this point, so what harm could seeking help do?
Trent visited the Counseling and Psychological Services at Pat Walker Health Center, where each student is allowed two free counseling sessions.
“The counselors never judged me. They were very open,” Trent said. “Admitting that you need help isn’t a bad thing.”
In addition to CAPS, the University of Arkansas has other programs available for students who are trying to stay sober. Razorback Recovery is designed for students seeking long-term rehabilitation throughout their college experience. Meetings occur Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. in the Wellness Center on Garland Avenue.
“We try to shy away from using words like addict,” Morgan said. “They’re just trying to figure out how to maintain a sober lifestyle and have a college experience.”
Beyond the small group of students who attend meetings each week on campus, Morgan tries to teach students about the dangers of being a bystander, something Scott and his wife are all too familiar with.
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Scott read the text messages on Will’s phone shortly after he died. In a jarring moment, Scott learned that many of Will’s fraternity brothers knew about his addiction yet failed to confront him. Angry at first, Scott recalls wondering why none of them ever said anything about Will’s evident addiction.
“Knowing how these kids felt, they had lost their friend, and they didn’t do anything, I realized it would be better for us to save kids than to point fingers at them,” Scott said.
With a glaring gap in education among students like their son, Scott and his wife established Will’s Work, a foundation in their son’s memory that is dedicated to illicit drug education and bystander intervention.
“I realized we have completely failed a generation,” Scott said. “This isn’t the ‘Just Say No’ generation.”
There isn’t enough drug education in schools, Scott said. Dated drug education programs from the 1980s like the “Just Say No” campaign have failed to reach students in this generation because they don’t reflect reality. Drugs are present on college campuses and exist in a very experimental environment.
“Just Say No” was an advertising campaign championed by First Lady Nancy Reagan during the 1980s. The campaign simply offered children various ways of saying no to drugs, without adequate drug education.
Historically, the culture of college fraternities placed a strong emphasis on brotherhood. Being a part of something special attracts students to campus organizations, whether it’s Greek life or something else, and students are expected to have a successful college experience through this type of involvement.
“The culture of fraternities is supposed to be the brotherhood protecting one another,” Scott said. “In Will’s fraternity, those boys totally lost that concept and the opportunity to protect their own.”
In a text message on Will’s phone, one of his fraternity brothers acknowledged that several of the members knew Will was getting into harder drugs but said he was afraid of making Will mad by trying to help him.
A screenshot of the full message is on willswork.org, accompanied with information about the “Speak Up-Speak Out” workshop that Scott presents on college campuses. With members of the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, Scott speaks to groups of students about the reality of drug use and, more importantly, how to seek help for their peers who have a drug problem.
“When kids have a substance abuse disorder, no adult is involved in that step anymore,” Scott said.
Often, when students notice a problem with the amount of drug use among their peers, it’s difficult to know exactly what to do or when the right time is to step in. Scott works with mental health professionals to educate students on their inability to fix everything themselves. Scott hopes the “Speak Up-Speak Out” workshop will influence students to go through the proper channels for their friends who need help, rather than staying quiet. They just need to say something.
Both modern and traditional drug education programs have focused on the risks that come with drug use. The first risk is the legal fallout that can come with using illicit substances. Even approved substances like alcohol and, in some places, marijuana, have parameters of the law in which they must remain. More seriously, there are medical risks in using drugs that have not been specifically prescribed to the user. This is where the risk of addiction and mental illness can develop. Programs like “Just Say No” failed to recognize that most drug users are aware of the risks – some may have even assessed them but have continued to do drugs anyway.
Trent had a positive experience seeking help for his depression and drug use throughout his freshman year. He said he was able to learn about himself in a way that allowed him to continue to use drugs while being conscious of their effects on his mental health. Essentially, he had learned his limits.
“I was in a good mental space again. I knew I could start using drugs without abusing them,” Trent said.
Trent doesn’t see the risks of drug use as significant. In his opinion, drug users who have confrontations with law enforcement are either careless or unlucky. Trent tries to take great care when and where he uses drugs, in order to avoid an “unlucky” situation. With mental health risks, Trent said it’s important for anyone who chooses to use drugs to really know who they are in order to avoid addictive use.
“I know personally, I don’t have the mental fortitude to break a psychological addiction,” Trent said. “I don’t put myself in a place that I will develop one.”
Whether it’s the experimental environment that comes with college life, higher availability, encouragement from peers or a perceived diminished risk, students at the University of Arkansas are using drugs.
“The first step to solving any problem is to acknowledge that there is one,” Scott said.
Whether he was consciously aware of it or not, he recited the common first step to recovery in most rehabilitation programs.
“Universities have to accept the fact that it is happening on their campus,” Doerhoff said. “Universities have to normalize this conversation.”
Oct. 14, 2017 was the first anniversary of Will’s death. James Smith, a close friend of Will who stood next to him in the picture from that fall day their freshman year, reflects.
“It’s horrible that this is what it took to realize there was a problem,” Smith said.
In the year since Will’s overdose, members of Pi Kappa Alpha have worked to change the drug culture in their fraternity. The most noticeable change is accountability, Smith said. More members hold themselves and their brothers accountable for their actions. Scott has played a big role in this, making several presentations to his son’s former fraternity, including a “Speak Up-Speak Out” workshop.
This year would have been Will’s senior year at the University of Arkansas, and although he won’t be walking across the stage with his friends and brothers, he remains with them in the tragic but important message he taught them.
“The fact that this was so close to home, it’s a problem in our house, with our neighbors, our brothers, our friends; it’s not foreign anymore,” Smith said, “It really can happen to anyone.”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Will Doerhoff attended high school in North Little Rock. It has been corrected to state that he attended high school in Little Rock.
Hill strives for accuracy and clarity in all matters.
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From left to right, Maddie Williams, James Smith, Monica Thomas, Will Doerhoff, Regan Marx and Grant Solomon pose for a picture at a Pi Kappa Alpha football tailgate in 2014.
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