At the University of Rochester (UR), school leadership is having a difficult time addressing an issue on campus that may soon become a problem for several others: heroin abuse.

According to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, UR president Joel Seligman issued a special statement to the school community after a freshman named Juliette Richard died of an apparent heroin overdose.

"I want to make a special plea to the students, faculty, staff and others in our community with regard to heroin," Seligman said in the statement. "Heroin has killed. In too many cases, heroin has been adulterated in unpredictable ways whose baneful effects the user cannot anticipate. Please get help."

Heroin is not the official cause of death, as the medical examiner on the case has not yet filed a report and Seligman's statement was careful not to state Richard died of an overdose. The Rochester Police Department (RPD) is also investigating and has ruled out foul play.

A report from the Campus Times cites "students and other news sources" saying heroin overdose played a role in Richard's death.

UR would not release the results of a recent survey the school conducted to measure heroin use on campus. A spokeswoman did tell the RDC the results suggested 0.4 percent of students had used heroin in the last nine days.

The newspaper previously reported an uptick in heroin abuse in the Rochester region because the drug had apparently become less pure and therefore cheaper. In 2011, Greater Rochester had 11 heroin deaths, then 28 in 2012 and 65 in 2013.

Like many schools, UR has only had to deal with marijuana and alcohol abuse.

"Frankly, there was not a lot of discussion about hard drug use before last month because our surveying data suggested it's at very low level and we didn't have any kind of event that drew our attention to it," Ralph A. Manchester, director of the Rochester's department of health service, told Inside Higher Ed. "The problem is, there's not been a great deal of research done on what kinds of programs work for college students who use drugs like heroin."