Trip Saturday gets mixed reviews

Administrators, students alike say day is dangerous

Trip Saturday wasn't about getting out of Oberlin, but rather, out of your mind. Started a few years ago by unknown founders, last Saturday was dubbed "Trip Saturday," a day for the exploration of psychedelic drugs, namely LSD (acid) and mushrooms containing psyocibin.

The goal of the day was to create a community atmosphere and to explore the options created by use of psychedelics throughout the country, stated a flier distributed throughout the campus. Six students on campus received on-campus mailings of bunches of these fliers, mysteriously distributed to these students.

The event was also publicized through word-of-mouth. A group of faculty, staff and administrators were concerned over the safety of the day and sent out an all-campus mailing spreading safety warnings to students.

At a staff meeting, a member of Residential Life brought one of the fliers in and expressed concern over its contents. On the flier, someone had written "can anyone say this is stupid?"

Dean of Residential Life and Services Charlene Cole-Newkirk said that was basically how she felt about the day.

"I think people know where President Dye and I stand on this," Cole-Newkirk said.

Dr. Charles Ross, director of the Counseling Center, wrote a statement outlining how to deal with a "bad trip," advising Residential Life staff to deal with a bad trip as they would a psychotic breakdown.

One student received the fliers in his box and handed them out. He didn't know why he was one of the students chosen to receive the fliers, but said he has been sent material on Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, "more than other people, it seems," he said.

He thought Trip Saturday was "a good idea, funny."

Another anonymous student who received the fliers in his mailbox didn't actively distribute them. He said he thought he got them in his box because "it's known I sell psychedelic drugs. But I don't know who I got them from," he said. "It was [probably] someone who knew I was someone to go to if you wanted to buy that flavor."

He didn't distribute the fliers because he didn't want it to be something people knew he took part in, even if it did have the potential to increase his sales, which it consequently didn't.

"To indulge in the psychedelic experience - you need to come to those conclusions on your own," he said. "It's not something you do because everyone else is doing it. It's a major commitment."

He thought the letter the administration sent out was harmless, and called it a "run-of-the-mill warning against the dangers of drugs."

He acknowledged that the administration had to do something along the lines of sending a campus mailing, because it is a dangerous activity in which to indulge.

One anonymous student tripped for the first time on Trip Saturday. She found out about it more through word-of-mouth than through the fliers. She had done mushrooms before, and wanted to do acid "more to satisfy curiosity more than anything else."

"I didn't want to try it by myself - I had many friends on acid at the same time - it seemed less scary," she said.

She said there were a fair number of psychedelic drugs around campus at the time, so she would have probably tried acid anyway, even if it wasn't Trip Saturday.

She had a pleasant experience. "I saw the good in every person. I felt like a little kid, very happy," she said. But she noted that acid is a "fucking time commitment," and that she didn't feel like herself until three days later.

An anonymous student learned of Trip Saturday through the fliers. He thought the event was kept quiet, but that many people did trip for the first time, something he felt ambivalent about. But he thinks acid is a good experience for people to have. "It's a humbling experience," he said. "People say it changes the way they think."

He thinks a change in ways of thinking is good. "Despite whether or not the change itself is good or bad, change itself is good. You can start again from scratch," he said.

He thinks Oberlin is a "really, really" easy place for people to obtain and use drugs. "A lot of people wouldn't do anything like [trip] before college. Not a lot of people aren't meant to do it, so they only do it once," he said.

He thought the administration acted well with the letter they sent out. He felt the tone was 'be careful if you're going to do it' but that they recognized they weren't going to stop the drug use. He felt the College had to do something or else parents would see the fliers and get upset.

"Whether or not [acid] is bad for you - it's not a pleasurable experience, it's beautiful. I think that's what they were saying," he said.