Last spring, after a years-long battle between student activists and university administrators, the University Senate approved a Good Samaritan policy for our university. The policy, which has been implemented in similar forms at nearly a hundred colleges and universities across the country, protects students from getting in trouble if they call for help for a friend who overdosed when illegal substances (including alcohol for minors) happened to be present.
Often, the moments spent worrying about whether to call for help and risk getting arrested can be the difference between life and death. A Good Samaritan policy is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card,” as some opponents have said. It’s a compassionate and understanding second chance for a student to live and for the friends who called to avoid serious disciplinary consequences in exchange for being, well, Good Samaritans.
It would seem a policy that protects students’ lives would be a no-brainer for administrators, yet it took this university more than three years to change the original Promoting Responsible Action in Medical Emergencies protocol to an official policy, even though they could have done so at any time.
Throughout this time, an overwhelming majority of students and faculty members were in favor of making the policy official — after all, what good is a rule if it’s only applied occasionally? Students wanted to know for sure that they would be protected from punishment in these extreme circumstances, and 92 percent of those polled said they would be more inclined to call for help if an official Good Samaritan policy were in place.
Fortunately, the policy was finally adopted. Unfortunately, there are still two big problems.
First, not every student at the university is aware we even have a medical amnesty policy that could potentially save his or her life, and an unknown policy does little good. More troublesome, though, is the fact the current policy only covers situations involving alcohol.
At more than half of the schools with Good Samaritan policies, students are protected in situations involving all other drugs, as well. This is logical considering marijuana and other recreational drugs may be present at a party and could deter people from calling for help even if the overdose in question is only alcohol-related.
Thankfully, years of work by student activists has changed administrators’ and other officials’ attitudes toward the issue — the Senate approved switching from a protocol to an official policy almost unanimously. Now is the time to push for a comprehensive Good Samaritan policy, one that would offer students protection in situations involving any illicit substance. A totally inclusive Good Samaritan policy would remove any remaining hesitations students might have about calling for help and would serve as a preventative measure promoting responsible action in the first place (i.e., calling an ambulance in the event of an overdose) rather than a reactive policy that rewards responsible behavior afterward.
I’m not saying there isn’t a place and time for discipline, but a scenario involving a serious medical emergency and young people who are afraid to jeopardize their college careers and legal records is not one of those times. It all comes down to compassion — what does the university value more: protecting students’ lives or upholding regulations on illegal substances? My gut tells me it’s the former, but until the current policy is expanded, the latter still appears to be the answer.
Lauren Mendelsohn is a junior psychology major and President of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. She can be reached at mendelsohn@umdbk.com.
