On Jan. 11, a school-wide email was sent out to students informing them of dangerous counterfeit drugs being sold within the community.
The email included a public service announcement from the sheriff’s department stating that pills were seized during a recent search warrant that had pharmaceutical markings on them and looked like Adderall pills. After testing them, the department found traces of methamphetamine.
According to the Mecosta County sheriff Brian Miller, deputies had been made aware of some suspicious activity happening at Northland Flats, where they arrested two individuals. They then gathered some information about the individuals which led to a search warrant of their apartment where they found the drugs.
Miller said this is the first time they have come across these pills.They hope to identify a major distributor in the future and that Ferris State students shouldn’t stress.
“You shouldn’t be worried at all if you are getting your medication from a proper manner,” Miller said. “If you are doing things legally and lawfully, then you shouldn’t be worried. You are always playing with fire when you start purchasing illegal substances from individuals in the public forum.”
Chief of the Department of Public Safety, Gary Green, was also involved in the incident. According to Green, the initial thought of the investigation was that the subject had been making the pills, but they later discovered that he had been receiving them through the mail.
Both DPS and the sheriff’s department are doing what they can to prevent any more of these incidents from occurring.
“We are being diligent in our patrols and we are making routine patrols through these parking lots,” Green said. “When we find drugs on these traffic stops we work with those individuals that were involved to try and determine where they are getting them from, and trace them back to the source so that we can make sure that they are not ending up on campus anymore.”
Green encourages all students to call if they are witnessing any suspicious behavior happening on or off campus. All students also need to be aware of the dangers of taking non-prescribed pills and to only take pills that are prescribed by a reliable pharmacist.
“A lot of students I know, especially during exam time, like to take Adderall pills so that they can stay awake to study,” Green said. “The problem is, first of all, it is illegal, but number two, you don’t really know what you are getting. That’s a dangerous place to be, you know this time it was methamphetamine, but what if it’s fentanyl which is highly toxic if taken without being monitored by a physician.”
The email to students was sent out by the Dean of Students Lina Blair, and they want everyone to be aware of the resources that are available to them if they are struggling with drug or alcohol usage.
“We have the Counseling Center in the Birkam Health Center that is available, and we also have a website that is called the Collegiate Recovery Education and Wellness, or CREW for short,” Blair said. “They can help students who struggle with even just low-level simple stuff like drugs and alcohol, and students can be supported in making healthier decisions. I think that is something that not a lot of students know about, which is important, especially in a situation like this.”
Blair hopes that the email was a way of making the students more aware of how dangerous these situations can be.