The number of Eastern students referred to the judicial board for alcohol violations have dropped by almost 100 while marijuana violations have risen only slightly.

Records from Eastern’s Judicial Affairs office shows total alcohol violations are down from 491 last year to 396 so far this year, and there have been 12 more marijuana violations since last year, said Keith Kohanzo, director of judicial affairs.

He also said the citation of one individual can list as several offenses. When the alcohol violations were broken down, statistics showed that cases have decreased across the board.

“I assume students are not getting caught in their room as much or they just aren’t bringing (alcohol) in,” said Art Mitchell, a University Police Department officer. Disciplinary cases of underage possession of alcohol are down from 442 to 343. Possession of hard alcohol, which is not allowed in campus housing has decreased from 10 to eight cases. Possession of alcohol in public areas has also dropped significantly from 178 last year, Kahanzo said, but this year’s numbers had not been determined.

While the number of judicial board cases has decreased, Mitchell said he suspects arrests by the UPD for alcohol violations will remain about the same as last year at 26, but specific totals have not been tallied. He said most citations issued by UPD are referred to the judicial board, especially if the violation occurs in a residence hall, unless there is a problem or a disturbance while issuing the citation.

Eric Davidson, assistant director of health services, said he hopes that the programs aimed at alcohol education have made a significant impact on campus and resulted in fewer people drinking, but there is little evidence to support that the drop in alcohol violations is a direct result of the programs.

“I think its a great testament to what we’re doing on campus,” he said.

Davidson said social norms campaigns have been researched and shown to significantly reduce the number of drinking students.

However, while alcohol citations are down, marijuana violations referred to judicial affairs have increased from 53 last year to 65 this year.

Last year, the UPD arrested 24 people for drug policy violation, but Mitchell said he suspects that number will increase dramatically. Numbers have not been totaled yet, but he said that he has noticed an increase in reports filed against offenders.

“There’s a lot of pot in the residence halls,” he said.

Davidson said part of the drug violation increase could be due to a nationwide trend, attributed to the supply of marijuana rising, sending the price down.

However, Davidson said marijuana may not get as much attention as drinking on campus next year because numbers are only up slightly from last year.

He said the marijuana use increase did not jump dramatically and probably will not reveal itself as a top priority when health services does its yearly needs assessment.