Safety, security and emergency management has reported that in 2014 they responded to 258 drug incidents on campus, a decrease of 33.9 per cent since 2013.
Before 2014, drug incidents on Algonquin’s Ottawa campus had been on the rise. The 2013 calendar year had seen a 94.5 per cent increase over the previous year.
2012 saw a 22.3 per cent increase in reports over the 2011 calendar year.
Colin Bonang, the associate director of safety, security and emergency management, said that this fluctuation is due to many different issues.
“Statistics are influenced by a number of different social, college and security services operational variables,” said Bonang. “The reported number of incidents should not be used singularly to support trend analysis without a full consideration of all variables.”
This school year, starting Sept. 1, 2014 and up until March 5, safety, security and emergency management has responded to 110 drug incidents on campus.
Of these incidents, 20 were reported in or around the vicinity of the ACCE building.
Bonang believed the high number of incidents around this building are due to the large amount of foot traffic in the area.
“Given the public exposure, plus 24-hour operations because of the OC bus station, the doors are open 24 hours a day,” said Bonang.
Another 40 incidents were logged in residence and 29 in the external category, which includes parking lots, roads and common spaces. The location with the fourth highest number of incidents was A-building with nine.
Both B- and T-building had four drug incidents reported. Each incident logged counts for one encounter with security. If more than one person was found with drugs, security counts all parties involved as one incident.
However, these numbers may not be representative of the total number of drug incidents that actually occur on the Ottawa campus.
“The number of responses (…) may be even higher if you add the police stats that Algonquin may not be aware of,” said Sgt. Michael Herasimenko of the Ottawa Police Services.
Herasimenko was one of the officers who staked out Ryan Farm Park in November 2014 after a high number of complaints of cannabis smoking in the area.
Bonang said that the majority of these incidents – roughly 90 to 95 per cent – were involving marijuana.
Security services only work with the police when they believe there is a more significant issue than possession occurring, such as trafficking. Most of the time, security will advise students on the college’s policy and an account may be placed on the student’s school record.