The University of Lleida changed yesterday the lighting of a bathroom on the ground floor of the Rectorate and replaced the white light with intense blue fluorescent lights to discourage the consumption of injected drugs in that space.
The measure has been applied in the most accessible toilet from the street, inside a building that remains open during school hours and where there is no access control. From the university, they explain that in recent weeks some isolated case of a person outside the university community who entered that bathroom to inject themselves had been detected.
Deterrent measure in the ground floor restroom
The change in lighting seeks to hinder the localization of superficial veins, an effect associated with this type of light and which is used as a deterrent in environments where intravenous consumption has been registered.
"Action has been taken in the area where the person used to go, the most accessible bathroom from the street" - Spokesperson, Universitat de Lleida
The UdL frames the action as an internal protection measure and maintains that it has been carried out to protect the university community, without additional interventions in other dependencies of the Rectorate having been announced for now.
A precedent in the Faculty of Medicine
It is not the first time that the university resorts to this formula. The UdL already applied it previously in another bathroom of the Faculty of Medicine for the same reason, after detecting a similar situation.
"It worked there, we hope it does in the Rectorate too" - Spokesperson, Universitat de Lleida
The university will now wait to see if the measure has an effect before deciding on new steps. For the moment, it does not foresee further actions and maintains this intervention as a specific response at the concrete point where the problem had been detected.