Another Nice Spring Day, Another Villanova LSD Bust

“Ruby Slippers LSD Sheet“. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

Was it just last month that a bunch of Villanova University kids went on bad LSD trips, resulting in two arrests and four hospitalizations? It sure was. Radnor Township cops confiscated $9,000 and 37 tabs of acid in February, and we pretty much assumed that was that, even though only a few years back, cops broke up what they said was a $1 million LSD ring operating out of Drexel University.

Well, Radnor cops were back on Villanova’s campus on Saturday to make another LSD bust. John Patrick Visser, a 19-year-old freshman from Aurora, Colorado, was arrested after campus police found paper dose tags and bottles of a liquid they believe to be LSD in a dorm room at Good Counsel Hall on the college’s South Campus. That’s the same dorm where the students involved in last month’s incident lived.

Though there’s no mention of this in the account in Villanova’s student newspaper, the Delco Times reports that a group of students visited Valley Forge National Historical Park on Saturday, when, you may recall, the weather was quite nice. When one of the group, a 19-year-old male, didn’t return to campus after the outing, fellow students reported him missing. He was eventually found by park rangers and taken to Phoenixville Hospital, suffering from a “bad reaction” to LSD.

That launched the investigation by campus security personnel that uncovered the blotter paper — enough for 3,800 LSD tabs — and bottles of liquid, according to Villanova’s director of public safety, David Tedjeske. Visser was charged with multiple crimes, including receiving stolen property, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. He spent a night in Delaware County jail before posting $5,000 bond.

After last month’s arrests, Father John Stack, vice president of student life, sent out an email to students and parents warning about the recent drug-related incident on campus, warning that students found to be involved in drug use could be suspended or expelled, and asking that students report any information they had about LSD use to public safety. At that time, Tedjeske told the student paper he couldn’t remember another incident involving LSD at the school. This time around, he told the student paper he believes the two incidents are related and that Visser was a “major source” of the drug for both. He told the Delco Times, “I’m optimistic it is the last of it,” and added that students “cooperated and were helpful” in the investigation.

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