First year Drugs and Alcohol Awareness sessions backfire after barely anyone turns up

An attempt by uni officials to get first years to attend a Drugs and Alcohol Awareness session has backfired spectacularly after many freshers didn’t bother to turn up.

Residents of Wills Hall received an email inviting them to an awareness session and were told in text which was put in bold and underlined: “all residents are expected to attend”.

However, Livi Brooks McLaughlin, a first year in Wills, told The Tab: “Nobody went to the talks at all. No one really cares or takes them that seriously.”

Freshers living in Badock, Hiatt Baker and Winkworth House all received a similar email and The Tab has been led to believe attendance at these halls was similarly poor.

The email sent to freshers warned them that anyone unable to go would have to attend one of the other sessions instead, though it’s unclear how the university plans to enforce this.

Some first years expressed surprise that only certain halls were targeted. Dan Jones, a disgruntled Philosophy fresher at University Hall said: “Being a philosophy student, there’s a stigma that we all do drugs anyway. So it came as quite a shock when I found out that my friends in ‘druggier halls’ had received the email and I hadn’t.”