Loyola University Chicago

Safety Net Coalition

Pandemic Lessons Poster Campaign

Check out information about Loyola's new poster campaign! Coming mid- November

During the pandemic, the Loyola community and people all over the world started practicing social distancing, mask wearing, and other cleanliness practices to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. 

As students began returning to Loyola's campuses, the Wellness Center and the Safety Net coalition thought about ways to encourage students to socialize safely if choosing to use alcohol and other drugs. We developed a plan to create a poster campaign based on the theme of AOD (alcohol and other drug) "Pandemic Lessons" , which are safety tips and important concepts that we all started thinking about more during the pandemic. 

Some overall themes of the campaign are the importance of setting boundaries and the of not sharing drinks and smoking devices. 

This campaign is based on harm reduction principles. At Loyola Chicago, students under the age of 21 cannot use alcohol on or off campus, and students 21 and over cannot serve alcohol to underage students. Although cannabis is recreationally legal in Illinois, it is federally illegal, and so students of any age are not allowed to use cannabis on or off campus. 

Students who do use need to recognize the potential disciplinary consequences, see OSCCR for mroe information. However, harm reduction is the idea that students can make their own choices around alcohol and other drugs, as many factors go into the decisions of whether to use and how much. Harm reduction is an approach where students are encouraged to implement different strategies if they choose to drink or use cannabis, such as setting a drink limit, alternating alcohol and water, and staying with the same group of friends. Each of the 4 posters in "Pandemic Lessons" features a different situation that someone may have thought differently about before the pandemic, but now they are choosing to make more informed choices. For example, before 2020, it may have seemed like a good idea to share Juul or other e-cigarettes as they are expensive, but now folks do not do that as it can spread serious illnesses like Covid-19.

Look out for the posters around campus in November, and email Mary Duckett at mduckett@luc.edu if you have any questions, or need resources.