Podcast: Students and drugs
Last updated on Friday 10 Oct 2025 at 10:19am
Universities often take a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to drug use or drug abuse. But there’s not much evidence to show that the fear or threat of being kicked out of uni works.
In this episode of The future of higher education today, we ask: if current drugs policies aren't working, what would?
Episode guests
Hosted by Kat Starczewski, former Senior Content Producer at Universities UK.
Hanna Head, PhD student, University of Birmingham and Chair, Universities UK Student Advisory Panel on student drug use
Professor Nic Beech, Vice-Chancellor, Middlesex University
John de Pury, former Assistant Director of Policy, Universities UK
Resources
Transcript
Download a transcript of this show (pdf).
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