Forget the pro-decriminalization debate for a second. For that matter, forget the anti-decriminalization debate.

Please stop selling drugs on the Quinnipiac campus.

Don’t stop it for the police, the University, or to keep your own criminal record clean. Stop it for the everyone else living on campus.

Students expect safety and security at college, but additionally, a sense of comfort. In an atmosphere devoted to learning and education, all residents must be able to clear their mind of any distractions. But when you bring marijuana or cocaine on campus, and worse, sell it, you take away the comfort of everyone around you.

“Yeah, we get cops here just about every week,” one student told The Chronicle after the arrest of freshmen Mathew Scherl and Bradley Burkhard.

That atmosphere is exactly the opposite of a successful learning environment.

More recently, freshman Peter Moran was arrested with alleged possession of nearly 60 grams of marijuana on Feb. 19. Had I been Moran’s roommate, I would not have been a fan of such property.

[CORRECTION: In the above paragraph, the article in the printed edition referenced Moran’s “roommates.” Irma, Moran’s residence, currently has two-person rooms.]

We all must regain a sense of respect for the Quinnipiac community–not particularly the faculty or the administration, but the students. We all live together under the Quinnipiac banner, and we decide how to interact on campus. We all have the final say in how safe, how tolerant, and how active the Quinnipiac community is. The only thing we are defined by is ourselves.

If you are selling drugs on this campus, you are affecting the security and livelihood of your peers, and effecting a perforation in our community.

Don’t bring Quinnipiac security into our community. Don’t bring the Hamden Police Department into our community. Don’t do illegal things. Deal?