Two arrests regarding drugs have occurred since students have returned from winter break, in particular marijuana charges, according to Col. Bob Beach, chief of Longwood University Police Department (LUPD).
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, possession or intent to distribute marijuana is illegal, according to Beach.
“We are a member of the Piedmont Regional (Narcotic and Gang Enforcement) Task Force and we aggressively go after that to make sure we are investigating drug cases and drug crimes so students should be aware of that,” said Beach.
In relation to last year from Jan. 1, 2016 until Feb. 20, 2016 Beach added:
“We (LUPD) had eight calls to go check on cases of possible drug use,” said Beach.
Beach then added that since Jan. 1, 2017 until Feb. 20, 2017,
“We (LUPD) had nine calls to go check (on cases of possible drug use),” said Beach.
LUPD has been called more to investigate the possible use of marijuana, but have left without opening an investigation, according to Beach.
A common occurrence has been marijuana that has been found while ticketing vehicles, according to Beach.
“When we are giving a parking ticket we look inside and there’s marijuana in the car we go get a search warrant and we recover the illegal drug and we continue investigation and go forward with it,” said Beach.
Beach disclosed that LUPD works closely with Residential and Commuter Life (RCL) when dealing with drug situations.
“If we get to a room and we smell significant odor and we can determine that there’s an odor from it we will knock on the door and talk to the people involved…if we feel we develop enough probable cause then we will ask if them to do a search and if they say no then we secure them in a room up and go get a search warrant and come back and search and we charge them criminally-that’s the process,” said Beach.
A full search is conducted when a call is received by LUPD, according to Beach.
“When you look at the overall issues of drugs here at Longwood, drugs are not the catastrophic issue that they are in other places, opioid abuse in other places are much more a concern for the community at large than in the culture at large.”
When a student is involved in a marijuana case, determining if a case needs to be brought to the attention of the Student Conduct and Integrity office is determined by LUPD, according to Jen Fraley, associate dean of conduct & integrity and university title IX coordinator.
Depending on the circumstances of the situation, students can participate in both the administrative process through the Student Conduct and Integrity office and also the criminal process, according to Fraley.
According to Fraley, the simultaneous situation a student may face is not considered to be double jeopardy.
“We (Longwood) also in our policy have some minimum guidelines for how we adjudicate other drug violations once those have been determined to be violations and minimum sanctions on how we proceed with communicative and educational sanctions might be attached to those,” said Fraley.
Every drug case is different in context and situational awareness, according to Fraley.
“We do have a first offensive and second offensive for use of drugs unlike the criminal code we don’t delineate out in our code of conduct different policy violations for things like possession as opposed to use,” said Fraley.
All cases are reviewed by the Student Conduct and Integrity office and are considered alleged violations, according to Fraley.
Fraley adds that if a case is determined to have sufficient evidence then the case is evaluated by one of Longwood’s hearing bodies, according to Fraley.
“(The hearing bodies) make recommendations in terms of responsibility and if there is a violation of the code of conduct or the honor code, also recommendations about sanctioning,” said Fraley.
Once one of the hearing bodies review the case, it is sent to the Student Conduct and Integrity office to ensure the due process elements were followed, which are defined in the student handbook.
“Our goal is that we (Longwood) want you to learn from this particular experience, reflect on your actions, the impacts for you and the community and how that will affect you and this community forward and really learn from that experience so that you can develop strategies or whatever the case may be, move forward in a productive way to be successful here,” said Fraley.
In depth explanations about Longwood’s drug and alcohol policies can be found in the Longwood Student Handbook.
