UCF students got a chance to vote for whether they support granting amnesty to students calling 911 for classmates suffering from alcohol poisoning — and 83 percent of 4,124 UCF students answering that question on their SGA Senate Senate ballots said “yes.”
UCF administrators have repeatedly rejected similar proposals students have been submitting for years. Previous policies were known as “Medical Amnesty” because they called for amnesty for students seeking help for emergencies arising from both alcohol and drugs. Following the repeated rejection of the full “Medical Amnesty” policy by UCF administrators, SGA has changed its tactic by pushing for a policy offering amnesty only for alcohol emergencies — and not drugs — known officially as the “Alcohol Emergency Policy.”
“We are pleased to learn that students would like to see this policy enacted here at UCF, and this support from the referendum will be a powerful lobbying tool for us going forward,” SGA spokeswoman Ashley Tinstman told KnightNews.com. “We will take this information to the UCF administration in hopes of eventually passing an alcohol emergency policy.”
In the video above, you can see the McCann/Brock administration pushing the policy during an SGA Senate meeting earlier this year.
KnightNews.com will continue following the push for amnesty at UCF, and will update you if UCF administrators decide to pass the policy SGA plans to submit.
The push for an alcohol amnesty policy at UCF has attracted widespread attention lately, in the wake of UCF freshman Ann Hefferin’s unexplained death and news that the University of Florida already adopted a similar policy earlier this year.
A full list of the winners of the SGA Senate elections is available in the SGA office.
