Drunk tanks: Canadian universities offer safe places to sober up

U of G offers recovery room for drunk students From CTV Kitchener's Maleeha Sheikh: Intoxicated students at the University of Guelph now have a dedicated space for their recovery.

Some Canadian universities are offering students a new option to stay safe when they think they’ve consumed too much alcohol: places to sleep it off under supervision.

The University of Guelph’s campus alcohol recovery room (CARR) – sometimes called the “drunk tank” -- is a six-bed space equipped with buckets that opened last year inside a campus residence building.

Students can sign up for a cot. Volunteers check them every 30 to 45 minutes for any signs they might need medical attention. Last semester, 51 people checked in. Two of them were sent to hospital.

Irene Thompson, director of student housing at Guelph, told CTV Kitchener it’s important that students who drink too much “are not going to be just in their rooms by themselves or in their rooms with somebody else who may have overconsumed.”

The University of Calgary has also recently opened a space where drunk students can sober up safely. The post-alcohol support space (PASS) is staffed by both volunteers and a registered nurse.

Kyle Guild, one of the student volunteers and a registered paramedic, called the recovery space a judgement-free zone.

“There’s not that sense of authority so I think interactions can be more relaxed,” he said. “Students seem to trust us.”

Research suggests many students are risky drinkers. When the National College Health Association surveyed 43,780 Canadian students in 2016, more than one in three admitted to having consumed five or more standard drinks in a single sitting in the previous two weeks.

The consequences can be deadly. There have been deaths linked to alcohol at Acadia University, Dalhousie University and Queen’s University.

Queen’s University has long had a “campus observation room” for students to sober up in on most weekend evenings, as well as during orientation week and on St. Patrick’s Day.

With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Maleeha Sheikh