Brown and White Vol. 130 no. 19

              The Brown and White Vol. 130 No. 19
Friday, April 22, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Police station moves to East Packer Avenue
Sara Blatchford/B&W Staff
The new Lehigh University police station was moved to East Packer
Avenue on Monday. The 12,000 square-foot building is closer to off-campus
residences.
By ANNA SIMONEAU
Lead Visuals Editor
The Lehigh University Police
Department moved from Johnson
Hall to the new building on East
Packer Avenue on Monday.
The department moved after
outgrowing its previous space in
Johnson Hall and moving several
of its operations to other parts
of campus, such as an impound
lot that was located on Goodman
Campus. All of the police’s equip-ment
will now be located in the
new building across from Zoellner
Arts Center.
While the station was moved
because of the lack of space, Chief
of Police Edward Shupp said the
new location is more convenient
because it is at the boundary
between on and off campus. He
said this will put officers in a
more convenient positions to help
students who live both on and off
campus.
“A third of our students live off
campus,” Shupp said. “So now we
are on campus, but bordering off
campus. We’re covering more of
our entire student population, so
I think it gives a better service to
everybody.”
The new location is also expect-ed
to help improve relations with
Bethlehem residents because the
new station will be more accessi-ble
to them as well.
The station is located where
Windish Hall was until its dem-olition
in August, and the police
station was built in less than a
year.
Shupp attributed the speed of
the construction to the quality
of the team running the project.
Erin Liston, the project manager
of the police station, said pres-sure
from Lehigh’s trustees and
good building conditions led to
the rapid turnover for the station.
“We just put together a good
design team that knew what we
were targeting for a completion
date, and we worked hard with
the team we put together,” Liston
said.
The campus architect position
was vacant during the construc-
See POLICE Page 3
Medical marijuana legalized in Pennsylvania
By CATHERINE MANTHORP
B&W Staff
Medical marijuana is now legal in
Pennsylvania after Gov. Tom Wolf
s i g n e d a medicinal use bill
Sunday.
Wolf signed the bill
after a majority vote in
the Pennsylvania House
of Representatives
passed the piece of leg-islation.
The state the
24th in the country to
vote in favor of
legalizing med-ical
mari-juana.
In terms of Lehigh’s student pop-ulation,
which includes both under-graduate
and graduate students,
the Spring 2015 National College
Health Assessment concluded 15.8
percent of Lehigh students used
marijuana 30 days prior to tak-ing
the assessment. The National
College Health Assessment is
a nationally recognized spring
research survey that assesses a
range of different health issues
among college students.
A sample of randomly
selected undergraduate and
graduate students at Lehigh has
been participating in the survey
since Spring 2013.
Lehigh’s surveys and data collec-tion
page reports only about 21 per-cent
of the chosen sample actually
take the assessment. Peter Costa,
the director of the
Office of Health
Advancement and
Prevention Strategies,
said 16.9 percent of all
students nationally reported
using marijuana 30 days prior to
taking the Spring 2015 assessment.
Thomas Novak, the associate
director of Lehigh’s Health and
Wellness Center, said individuals
who suffer from about a dozen and
a half chronic and often debil-itating
conditions may qual-ify
for medical marijuana in
Pennsylvania. He said medical mar-ijuana
is intended for those who live
with certain chronic conditions
that impair their quality of life
and daily function.
Novak said patients
with chronic condi-tions
who qualify
for medical mari-juana
will already be under the care
of a specialist, and the specialist
would provide them with the pre-scription.
He said the health center does
not anticipate needing to prescribe
medical marijuana.
“Patients with these chronic,
ongoing conditions are often
unable to fully execute an
extremely demanding academ-ic
curriculum,” Novak said. “We
would expect the need for our uni-versity
students to be rare.”
Christopher Mulvihill, the
assistant dean of the Office of
Student Conduct and Community
Expectations, said it is too soon to
know if the new law will impact
Lehigh’s campus. He added it was
unclear whether any Lehigh stu-dents
would be using medical mar-ijuana.
“As always, Lehigh will develop
policies that protect the health and
safety of students while complying
with federal, state and local laws,”
Mulvihill said.
He said while the use of medi-cal
marijuana may now be legal
in Pennsylvania, the recreational
use of the drug is still not permit-ted.
He also
said Lehigh’s
code of conduct
prohibits the illegal or
unauthorized use, pos-session
and distribution
of drugs, which include
but are not limited to
marijuana.
Lori Friedman, the
director of media rela-tions
in Lehigh’s Office of
Communications and Public Affairs,
said schools that receive federal
financial assistance, such as Lehigh,
must comply with the Federal Drug
Free Schools and Campuses Act.
This act requires these policies that
prohibit marijuana use, possession
and distribution on campus.
Costa said marijuana can be
addictive and to stop using it can
cause withdrawal symptoms such
as irritability, sleeplessness and
anxiety. The drug can cause height-
Courtesy of Wikimedia See MARIJUANA Page 3
Although legalized in the state, it is unclear if
Lehigh policies will change to allow the drug