Patricia Brotzel
Crime Reporter

Humber students who use drugs recreationally should be aware they may contain unknown substances, said the Toronto Police Service.

“There are dangers involved with taking any street drug because there is no guarantee to the purity of the drug put together for profit … they could be putting any active drug in there,” said Detective Constable David Nevin.

“It is what it is,” he said. “It’s rampant and all drugs that are prone to [illegal street sale] are likely to be laced.”

Health Canada’s 2010 Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey found that seven per cent of Canadians ages 15 to 24 used at least one of these drugs: cocaine, speed, ecstasy, hallucinogens or heroin. (Lifetime drug use statistics are seen in the graph above.)

According to police, distributors often add other substances to the drugs they sell, such as baking soda, as a way to increase volume while decreasing the amount of product. People must also consider where the drugs are made.

“The conditions that these drugs are manufactured in are more often than not atrocious,” Det. Const. Nevin said.

Liz Sokol, co-ordinator of counselling services, said cannabis is likely the most prevalent drug on campus. “You can walk out any door on campus and most likely you are going to get a smell of something,” she said.

While marijuana is the most noticeably used drug on campus, and less likely to be cut with other elements, some students use more dangerous substances that could potentially be laced with unknown chemicals.

“We also have students who have cocaine habits,” Sokol said. “Meth, crystal meth – not a lot, but it is not unheard of.”

Pervez Ditta, Humber’s director of public safety, said people using drugs on campus aren’t always Humber students and may not be representative of consumption within the college student body.

“We had issues with some of the green space between the [Lakeshore] campus and the school,” Ditta said. “We displaced quite a few young students around there that weren’t actually students of ours.”