Drugs, the Pandemic & WWC
Benedetto Maniscalco | February 10, 2022
Quinn Bonney
Trashcan of drug and alcohol paraphernalia on Warren Wilson campus.
Substance use and misuse have seen a rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, pointing to a crisis in mental health. This change has been felt globally, with the initial and continuing lockdowns due to the pandemic being a major factor in people increasing their consumption habits.
Vivian Salvucci, a Warren Wilson College (WWC) first-year on the blacksmithing crew, describes what changes she saw happening in her own hometown in Pennsylvania.
“Out of all the people I stayed in touch with, I think only one of them stayed in college and the rest of them ended up dropping out or at least taking a gap year,” Salvucci said. “And most of that I’m pretty sure was because of drugs.”
She continues by describing the increase in numbers of peers selling drugs during the pandemic, as well. While the world faced shortages of all kinds there, Salvucci explains that there seemed to be no shortage in drugs.
“It was almost the only thing we could get. It was almost the only market still up and running,” Salvucci said.
Back at WWC, the sentiment of students wasn’t much different.
“The pandemic is boring and looking for stuff to do was the problem,” a sophomore art major who wishes to stay anonymous explained. “Once campus got shut down, I started using a lot more, again out of boredom.”
For her this meant a rise in drinking, and eventually stimulants and MDMA as well.
While returning to campus provided her with an environment better suited to stop taking harder substances, the levels of cannabis and alcohol use on campus has made it difficult for her to attempt complete sobriety.
Eliot Ward, WWC sophomore, had similar thoughts on the prevalence of specifically cannabis use on campus.
“I don’t think anyone would actively try to hinder (students seeking sobriety) but the fact that it’s everywhere just kind of makes it difficult,” Ward said.
While Warren Wilson has had its own shifts in substance use, the major parallel between how these shifts are felt on campus and elsewhere is the connection to bigger issues people are facing in mental health.
Jennifer Mozolic Ph.D., a part of the psychology department, teaches a course on the behavioral psychology of drug use. This class focuses on the intersections of substance misuse and mental health.
“People are talking about all kinds of mental health a lot more than they were before the pandemic,” Mozolic said. “I think it highlights some good data that we have that mental health has been hit really hard by the pandemic. Distress of uncertainty, economic stress, the isolation, just the disruption of all kinds, it makes sense that there's a bit of a crisis in mental health.”
Along with the major factors of stress and shifts in mental health, the confines of the initial lockdown and the year of online classes has shown how isolation and boredom can shift people's substance use habits.
Mozolic explains how perception is one factor in shifts in people’s substance use.
“I do think perception is a really interesting component of both drug use and people’s levels of distress about their own levels of use. Whether they feel like ‘everyone is doing this and I’m not,’ there’s a lot of social comparison.”
Each interviewed student agreed that there was an increase in substance use on and off campus. They also all felt there was a noticeable increase in conversation about increased drug use during the pandemic.
Salvucci felt that though this has become a more widely talked about issue, there isn’t much action being taken to help.
“We have the awareness but it never really goes farther than that,” Salvucci said.
Ward and the anonymous student noted the availability of resources specific to Warren Wilson’s campus but acknowledged that they or their peers wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable reaching out to counselors on campus about problems involving illicit substances.
The WWC Counseling Center does provide students with services that are both free and confidential, and students struggling with substance misuse or other mental health concerns can reach out to them through their page. They can also point students in the direction of resources not connected to WWC.
Buncombe County has also put together this comprehensive list of resources, including those pertaining to mental health and wellness as well as help and support groups specific to substance misuse.