The Monro Doctrine

Until now, the policy of the University has been either to send "drug-users" to the Health Center, or put them on probation, or both. Although sending a drug-user to the university psychiatrists implies that all use of drugs represents a form of mental illness (which is clearly not always the case) it is infinitely preferable to treating drug use as a crime.

However, in a recent statement to the freshman class, Dean Monro declared: "In sum, if a student is stupid enough to misuse his time here fooling around with illegal and dangerous drugs, our view is that he should leave college and make room for people prepared to take good advantage of the college opportunity."

Arguments can be made against the use of drugs, but this one is not particularly felicitous. One would hope that Dean Monro does not plan to expel all drug-users, but rather that his statement is a result of the increased pressure from police and groups outside the University who feel that the College must be cleaned up.

To condemn drug use as illegal or dangerous is one thing, but to condemn all the students who have experimented with drugs as wasting their time at Harvard, is quite another. We can only hope that the new Monro Doctrine does not represent a change in University policy towards drug-users and that it is only a meaningless sop thrown to the Food and Drugs investigators.