The nation’s opioid epidemic is focusing new attention on a strategy Rutgers pioneered back in 1988. Oregon State University will offer substance-free housing to students this coming school year. Last year, Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law that requires all state colleges and universities in New Jersey to offer sober housing if at least a quarter of the students live on campus. The law gives schools four years to comply, but the College of New Jersey was already preparing to open a sober dorm, which it did last fall. Texas Tech opened its substance-free housing in 2011.
Sober dorms are a “major new development in the recovery movement. They’re unique because they get to the heart of the beast,” said Dr. Robert DuPont, a psychiatrist who specializes in drug abuse. DuPont heads the Institute for Behavior and Health, a drug policy think tank based in Rockville, Maryland, and served as the second White House Drug Czar from 1973 to 1977.
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