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Drug use is rejected by a clean-living era of students
Students are extra doubtless to need universities to take a harder line in opposition to medicine on campus, quite than a extra liberal response, say researchers.
The researchfrom the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and the University of Buckinghamdiscovered 71% of students had not taken unlawful medicine.
But nearly 40% thought their college had a "problem" with drug use.
Hepi's director, Nick Hillman, stated students had been "more hardworking and less hedonistic" than was realised.
The research, which surveyed greater than a thousand undergraduate students, rejects the picture of students being sympathetic to drug use, and suggests a extra clean-living era.
'Fewer medicine than earlier era'
It exhibits 62% wanting a "stronger line" from universities to cease the medicine commerce on campus and 53% considering that college authorities don't do sufficient to discourage drug use.
Drugs didn't appear to be prevalent sufficient to be a main fearwith extra students involved about extreme alcohol consumption than unlawful drug use.
The adverse view of medication noticed them as inflicting psychological well being issues and inspiring criminality.
Last week an annual research of pupil attitudes from Hepi gave additional proof of a cultural shift in the direction of a extra hard-working approaching to pupil life.
It confirmed that students wished to have extra educating hours, seeing a heavier workload as higher worth for cash.
Paying tuition charges and the stress to get a good diploma appear to have influenced what students anticipate from their years at college.
Amy Watson, a first-year drugs pupil on the University of Southampton, thinks the earlier era was extra doubtless to have taken medicine than present students.
She thinks that the expectations of older folks and media stereotypes of students have created a false notion.
"My parents probably think more people take drugs than really do," says Amy.
"People work a lot harder than I expected."
Drugs 'stigma'
She says there's a "stigma surrounding drug use" and he or she would assist the college taking a harder line on concentrating on drug sellers.
But regardless of the negativity in the direction of unlawful medicine, she says the misuse of alcohol continues to be frequent in universities.
She additionally says the best stigma is now hooked up to smoking tobacco.
Sam Carmichael, a 19-year-old pupil ending her first yr on the University of Buckingham, says the survey outcomes replicate her personal views.
Students in her expertise are a good distance from any medicine tradition.
She would favor universities to "crack down" on medicine, quite than undertake a extra tolerant method.
But she says that there's nonetheless a persistent media picture of students as drug takers.
"It's less than people think. It's not true," she says.
She would favor universities to make specific efforts to cease drug dealing.
"It makes us feel less safe," she says.
But she additionally thinks there must be higher "monitoring" of students who drink an excessive amount of alcohol and "get off their faces".
Counter-productive
The outcomes from this survey don't agree with one other latest piece of analysis from the National Union of Students, which instructed that about two in 5 students had been drug customers.
Cannabis, ecstasy, nitrous oxide and cocaine had been essentially the most extensively used, in accordance to a research which instructed that medicine had been rather more pervasive than claimed by the Hepi and University of Buckingham report.
The NUS says the method of taking a harder line on drug use might be counter-productive.
"Punitive approaches and taking a tougher stance on drugs can discourage people from seeking the help they need," stated NUS officer, Jess Bradley.
The variations in findings recommend how totally different particular person experiences and peer teams might be.
But Mr Hillman says the "survey provides an important corrective to some of the wilder ideas about today's students".
Sir Anthony Seldon, vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham, says: "With unlawful medicine, we now have been fiddling whereas Rome burns.
"Illegal drug-taking causes mental health problems, and is a symptom of them. Even students themselves think there needs to be a stronger lead on drug dealing."