After years of booze-fueled Spring Weekend parties drew unflattering national attention, University of Connecticut President Philip Austin convened a 24-member committee in 2003 to come up with suggestions on how the school should battle substance abuse on campus.

Almost five years later, the President's Task Force on Substance Abuse's chairman, and some other school officials say the university has followed through on many of the recommendations. But some anti-drug officials also see alcohol and some drugs like marijuana as constant, long-term problems.

President's Task Force on Substance Abuse Chairman John DeWolf says things happened on campus as a result of the report. "I think the president and university administration did a great job of following through. I know a lot was done, and I believe the university took the report seriously. I would like to think it made a difference.

"I am an engineer, and I hesitate to say if this has made a change without numbers to back it up," DeWolf said. The UConn Police Uniform Campus Crime Report shows drug arrests increased each of the three years after the task force report was issued, climbing from 87 in 2004, to 143 in 2005, and 177 in 2006.

The number of liquor arrests was almost unchanged between 2004 and 2005, then jumped by about 50 percent in 2006. Arrests for driving while intoxicated dropped by a third between 2004 and 2005, then increased to slightly more than their original level in 2006.

Most of those arrests came on public property on the campus, which would often be accessible to non-students. Increases or decreases in arrests could also result from changes in police enforcement or staff allocation, as much as an increase or decrease in the actual number of people drinking under-age or using illegal drugs.