Students of the Uni of Sussex are protesting against the proposed job and course cuts at the university are still holding part of a university building room. There have been reports that about 100 students stormed the Terrace Room at Bramber House on Falmer campus at about 4pm Monday.

Up to 70 are thought to still be there on Tuesday morning with fellow students bringing food, water and blankets overnight. The university management have closed the third floor of the building whilst the demonstrators are there.

The protest was the climax to a demonstration, organised by the Stop the Cuts campaign, against management plans to cut 115 jobs in a bid to save £5 million in 2010-11. But this is where it gets a little tricky, what are they really protesting against and is there not a better way that they can try and get the university to hear what they have to say.

The New Current is in FULL support of students who make a stand against their institution for things they believe in but has any one asked where all the money goes, what does the university spend its budget on, what is the uni’s budget, what have they got planned for the future and where is that money going to come from.  What are the salaries of the staff, the VC, lecturers, and readers?  And how can they justify job cuts if in some cases most BA’s have only 8 hours max contact time and 6 months vacation time?  So where does all the money go?

Protesting against the cuts is important but they need to get a hold of a wider issue of the cost of the university and where they, as a group, can provide a credible alternatives to cutting these costs rather than cutting the jobs and courses.

A support demonstration was planned for Tuesday outside the campus library.

A university spokeswoman said: “We are making alternate arrangements where events in the Conference Suite might have had to be re-arranged. “Our overriding concern remains the safety of students, staff and visitors to the campus and the good running of normal university activities. We want this disruptive action to end as swiftly as possible.”

There is no mild way any institution needs to be or act when dealing with drugs.  But that was what I thought until I read this piece on the USSU website READ THE FULL PIECE HERE. This comes as a result of students on Campus, and I can only assume from the USSU website that these are first year students, have been to Unisex with problems they have been experiencing because of their use of Mephedrone.

For us there has to be at a University level a Zero Tolerance to drug use, possession and distributing.  Brighton, as is common knowledge, a serious drug problem, so much so that in 2009 it regained it’s ‘Drug Death Capital of the UK‘ beating much larger cities like Liverpool, Manchester and London.  On both Lewes Road (the Avenue) and London Road there are Methadone clinics and pharmacies that give out Methadone which make these areas unsafe and undesirable.

This last line in this piece states ‘For more ideas* on safer drug usage* and how to look after yourself and your friends, please see our factsheet‘ sends a very bad message to students and is one that I feel the union and University needs to re-address.  Students, to the most part are not addicts, but to provide ‘helpful’ information on ‘safe drug use’ is immature and does not in anyway deal with the issue which seems to be to many students doing drugs at the University of Sussex.  Does the USSU feel that they need to give students ‘ideas’ on how to take drugs, or supposed tips on ‘safe drug usage?

*Emphasis added by the author.

The USSU’s piece doesn’t go far enough and doesn’t give enough facts or information which is essential to try and ensure that students are all to aware that all drugs, smoking and drinking as well, are dangerous and can lead to death.  In Stockholm in 2008 an 18 year old girl died after buying Mephedrone over the net, here, and in 2010 last month a 49 year old woman died in Scotland after taking Mephedrone, here.  And since 2009 there have been calls in the UK to ban so called ‘legal highs’ as a result of this the USSU advice seems more condoning students using Mephedrone and other drugs than informing them that its against university policy.  Drug deaths are rising and you only have to look at the data available here.

This wouldn’t be a hard thing for them to do since Oxford University has banned students from using Spotify on university campus I think it would be easy enough for the University to ban students using so called legal highs and giving advice on drug usage.

There has to be some information about drugs made available to people who may take it but for many students prolonged use of any drug, including alcohol, can have serious and life long implications.  There seems to me a weakness from the University and the students union to actually tackle this issue full on and to inform a student body that any drug use will result in expulsion and criminal prosecution.  This might sound harsh but students are participating, in some cases more so than local residence, in the making Brighton (and other student areas in the UK) more dangerous and increase the drug dealer/traffickers coming to the area.

.

DEVELOPING STORY (University of Sussex) There have been reports that a student, having come home from a night out drinking with friends, has been stabbed in his halls of residence this Friday.

The alleged incident has not been reported and we have not been given any confirmation as to whether or not this is true but reports have come in from the security at the University of Sussex.

At the time of going to print there was still no confirmation as to the name of the alleged victim.  We will keep you posted.

UPDATE: We still have not heard from the University about the stabbing but our sources tell us that the incident didn’t happen at the halls of residence but at a pub in Brighton City Centre.  The student in question is still in hospital but is said to be doing fine.