(U-WIRE) Medical amnesty deserves a chance to help save lives, even if it has potential to end poorly.
If the new medical amnesty procedure is implemented, someone who is in dire need of medical assistance while under the influence of an illegal substance can receive that crucial help without the worry of crippling disciplinary action.
The concern, of course, is that students will see this as an excuse to freely use any amount of illegal substance, be it alcohol when underage or drugs. I guess it has the potential to be somewhat of a “get out of death free” card.
This could very well be a legitimate concern. The last thing we should be doing is telling people, even indirectly, that consuming mass quantities of drugs or alcohol and coming to the verge of an overdose is A-OK, especially with drinking as prevalent as it is among college students.
Common sense says if you do something wrong, you get in trouble for it, no matter whether it endangers your life or not.
In this situation, though, you really do have to silence the part of the brain that generates common sense. Morality must grudgingly take center stage here. While it may seem like a blow to our campus justice system to simply ignore a violation such as binge drinking or drug use, the fact is that sometimes saving a life trumps going by the rules of crime and punishment.
Medical amnesty has the ability to save lives, and we should at least let that potential have a chance to prove itself. Someone who needs medical assistance due to drug consumption should not have to worry about calling that ambulance. They shouldn’t have to weigh the cost of getting kicked out of college and not getting the medical attention they need to survive.
This thought should not even cross their mind. Besides, if someone thinks they are having an overdose, the last thing they really need is one more thing to worry about. They already have a lot going through their brain, both emotionally and chemically.
Users have another way to be saved thanks to what will hopefully be the future of handling drug emergencies. What is usually referred to as the “Good Samaritan” coverage is also outlined in the medical amnesty concept.
This means that someone who is with a person who needs medical assistance due to illegal substance use can call for help on behalf of that person without fear of discipline, no matter whether they have partaken in the same illegal activity themselves or not.
Just as the individual user should not have to fret about the consequence of getting help, neither should a friend. Nobody should be put in the position where they have to decide between saving their friend’s life and keeping their college record clear. Their first instinct should be to call for help, no matter what illicit substance has been snorted, injected or swallowed.
Of course, students should not be putting themselves in this position in the first place. We could be doing more to teach students about the dangers of alcohol poisoning and other hard drugs. Nobody disagrees that making good decisions will almost always keep you from having to get your stomach pumped, which is about the last thing anyone wants to be doing on a Friday night.
We also understand, however, that people make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. College is the place where people experiment with things, and sometimes those things are pretty dangerous.
Students deserve a second chance when it comes to certain things. Life is pretty high up on that list. Why should the chance at a college education not be included?
But, if the system backfires and we see a spike in the number of alcohol and drug cases after implementation of the medical amnesty policy, we should reserve the right to pull the plug on it. The last thing we want to see is students who think they are going to get caught purposefully overdosing in order to fall under the protection of the amnesty policy.
If this happens, we will gladly admit that the experiment was not a successful one.
For now, though, we should be progressive and see if this works. Being forced to make a decision between getting medical treatment or staying in school is a decision with a chance at an unhappy ending. They don’t usually let you stay enrolled when you are six feet under.
If medical amnesty can prove to save lives, even if it is just a handful, it will be proven to be successful. This is why we should put medical amnesty into practice at the University of Central Florida.