Last May, four students at Johns Hopkins University were hospitalized after overdosing on opioids during a late-night fraternity party. Furman University in Greenville, S.C., lost a student a day before his graduation last spring when he overdosed on fentanyl. A sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who had just spent the weekend with his mother at a Tar Heel football game, was found dead in his bedroom. In his system were traces of the opioids he had tried desperately to kick.

States have urged colleges to take action. New York and Colorado are earmarking millions of dollars to their public colleges for prevention education and research. Maryland now requires colleges and universities to offer arriving students a drug-prevention class that focuses on the risks of opioid use. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who heads the federal addiction task force, announced this year a $1 million increase for recovery dorms on public campuses in his state.

It is not uncommon for stores near campuses, health centers and dorms to stock free overdose reversal kits of naloxone. And the return to school now includes a bustle of overdose-prevention training sessions for residence hall assistants, campus police officers and health care workers.

Last year, West Virginia University, in a state that leads the nation in fatal drug overdoses, started a parent support group. Mothers and fathers of young users gather monthly, some calling in remotely, to tell stories of spoons going missing from kitchen cutlery drawers and students calling home, desperate for money, dropping out of classes or getting arrested. Sometimes the parents cry uncontrollably.

•

Prescription pills are part of the party mix. Xanax, a highly addictive anxiety drug, has become a popular accompaniment to beer and vodka shots. Adderall is crushed for snorting. And Vicodin is ingested as a relaxant, available from students with prescriptions or on an online black market.

Dr. Joseph Lee, medical director for youth services at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, says that students act as mixologists, creating dangerous drug and alcohol cocktails for themselves and friends. “They are alarmingly familiar with what they can do to get high, but not the danger,” he said, “and they don’t know where to get help.”

Students in recovery confirm this. Many of them say that in high school and college they were purposeful about their drug use, smoking pot to calm down and taking stimulants to speed up. The technique worked well, until overuse and mixed use began to alter the impact. Drugs that were supposed to do one thing did another.