During the middle of February, the student Drug and Alcohol Committee put up posters around campus with facts regarding drug and alcohol use among Gunn students. The posters are part of a project aimed at changing the school’s perception of the number of students who consume drugs and alcohol.

There are currently two Drug and Alcohol Committees at Gunn. One is run by the administration, while the other is a subgroup of the administrative committee made up of members of the Student Executive Council and headed by Dean of Students Christine Wang. The main purpose of the Drug and Alcohol Committees is to let the student body know that drug and alcohol use is low at Gunn, junior member of the student committee Ahmad Fayad said.

The current project of putting up posters started this school year when the administrative committee decided to use the results of previous Healthy Kids and Social Norms surveys.

“Compiling the data yielded interesting trends pertaining to the usage of drugs and alcohol,” committee member junior Wendy Zhang said. “In general, the surveys found that students believed a majority of their peers were doing drugs and alcohol when, in reality, a majority do not.”

According to the survey, 76 percent of all Gunn students never use marijuana and 74 percent do not drink alcohol in a typical month. Of those doing drugs and drinking alcohol, more than 50 percent stated that the reason for doing so was because they believed that the rest of the school was doing the same.

“It became clear that changing the perception of wide drug and alcohol usage would help reduce the number of students drinking and taking drugs,” Zhang said.

The administrative committee planned the project, while the student committee formed in December to do hands-on work. The planning process took about a month, while the process of designing and making posters lasted more than two months.

“Each design consisted of two random facts and one fact regarding the Social Norms survey, such as 74 percent state that they do not drink in a typical month.” Fayad said.

In addition to the posters, the committees are working on a student-run drug and alcohol assembly, which will take place Apr. 22.

Those interested in joining the student committee should contact Wang at cwang@pausd.org.