SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – This spring, UC San Diego will become the latest UC University to acquire a vending machine that sells the “morning after” pill.
The vending machine will be placed inside the Price Center. Besides selling Plan B pills, it will also sell condoms, pregnancy tests and Advil. It’s a service proposed and approved by students at UC San Diego.
Student Senator Caroline Siegal Singh spearheaded the effort after watching UC Davis implement its own machine, but more importantly, after a friend had trouble buying the Plan B pill when she needed it.
“Plan B and other wellness products are just not readily available on campus, and this is a service that students need. Throughout this experience, it was more than $100 cost between Uber and the actual cost of the Plan B product,” she said.
Some students at UC San Diego they were supportive of the vending machine, but some remained unsure with how to react.
“You have your own sense of privacy and you can easily go buy whatever you need and go back home. However, there can be an abuse of it as well – so I don’t feel any particular way about it,” said Janaeri Garcia.
The effort was initially proposed by Singh to be placed inside the Geisel Library. That proposal was denied with the library saying the support students’ access to Plan B, but “we feel that items available in this machine should continue to adhere to the original intent for having the machine at Geisel.”
The cost of the vending machine will be split. It will be purchased using money from a budget that is funded by a student activity fee and money directly from Assistant-Vice Chancellor Karen Calfas.
UC San Diego will join UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara as the only UC system schools to offer a wellness vending machine.