The new vending machine containing condoms, personal hygiene products and healthy snacks has been installed in the CUB, getting mixed opinions from students.
ASWSU’s new wellness kiosk was installed on the ground floor in the CUB on March 18. Allison Hilliker, junior literature studies major, said she believes the new kiosk will have a positive impact at WSU and will help students feel more comfortable getting the products that they need.
“I think it will make an impact on people’s comfortability with asking for help and I hope it will decrease the number of people who need things like pregnancy tests, who do not end up getting them because they’re afraid of what people will think in the grocery store,” Hilliker said.
Hilliker said she thinks similar kiosks should be implemented at other universities because college students deserve access to safety items and materials and putting them on campus in a widely used space will ensure everyone gets access to these items. She thinks the wellness kiosk is great for students who live on campus and do not have cars, but need quick access to healthcare items.
Junior anthropology major Thomas Ball said he thinks it was not a good idea for WSU to put a kiosk that features condoms and the oral contraceptive pill because it will encourage unsafe sex and increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
“Now that these products are more available, they will be used more and people will be encouraged to be less safe in general since they will be able to avoid the consequences of not being safe more easily,” Ball said.
Ball said he believes students may take less precaution on practicing safe sex now because of the products, such as contraceptives available at the wellness vending machine.
Junior psychology major Jayda Marks said she has mixed opinions on the new kiosk because she thinks it is helpful to have these products accessible, but the kiosk could be made more accessible for certain students by accepting RDA or Cougar Cash instead of only debit or credit cards.
Marks said she is happy the pricing for the items in the kiosk is reasonable since the other on-campus markets tend to overcharge on personal hygiene products. In addition, along with the medicine and healthcare products should also be Narcan, which can treat narcotic overdoses in emergency situations.
“I think that should be implemented at the kiosk so students have access to Narcan,” Marks said. “The prices, however, are very comparable to other retail stores, which is a great thing. The main downside is that it is slightly inaccessible for certain individuals because it will not take RDA.”
