Bust Rumor Brings Up Harvard Drug Policy

Despite persistent rumors among undergraduates of an imminent bust, University officials say they have no indication that police are planning to crack down on drugs at Harvard. But a number of recent incidents involving drugs on campus may cause administrators to reconsider Harvard's internal policies on the use and sale of drugs.

For the first time in four years, the Administrative Board is faced with a major disciplinary case involving drug traffic among undergraduates, a case which may also involve a shakedown operation on campus.

Drop-off Sites for Heroin?

And a recent arrest of a non-student in Holyoke Center may indicate that Harvard buildings are being used as drop-off sites in transactions of hard drugs.

Dean May and Harvard Chief of Police Robert Tonis both say they have never been contacted by either state or local authorities for information about drug users or peddlers at Harvard. But May denied that Harvard and Cambridge have a "gentleman's agreement" about drugs.

"As far as I know, an undergraduate selling drugs from a dormitory runs the same risks as a non-student peddling from an apartment in North Cambridge," May said yesterday.

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Dean May, President Pusey, and several aides said that they know of no impending drug raids, but the Cambridge police have the right to enter the University with search warrants at any time. May and Pusey said that they can give no assurance that in case of a bust the police would warn the University in time to notify other members of the community even if the Administration should want to do so.

"Internally, the University has no policy with regard to drugs," May said. "We deal with each case individually as it comes before the Administrative Board." According to May, drug problems are treated as are other cases, such as shop-lifting or hit-and-run driving incidents, which come under the University's in loco parentis policy.

Dean May expressed no special concern about drugs at Harvard this year. "It's a problem we've had for a long time. Certainly there are more drugs on campus than there were in 1920, but whether there are more than there were last year, I don't know."

Rash of Incidents

Four incidents over the past month, however-two involving heroin and one involving an alleged shakedown operation in a marijuana sale-have called into question the college's reluctance to formulate a policy on drugs.

"Now. the attitude is the same as it was about parietals," said one Ad Board member who wants to formulate a more explicit policy on drugs. "We don't seek out offenders, but if a case falls into our laps, we deal with it. The difference is that there was never any danger that police would come on campus to enforce parietals."

This month, a case involving $1000 worth of marijuana has fallen into the Ad Board's lap. The case, which members of the Ad Board were reluctant to discuss, came to the Board because it set off a scuffle in a freshman dorm between a freshman and two older persons, one tentatively identified as an undergraduate, who took five kilos (11 pounds) of pot from the freshman.

The freshman had been involved in transferring the drugs, without making a profit, to another student. After the marijuana was stolen from him, the freshman told his sources, allegedly undergraduates on scholarship, that he could not pay them. They told him that they would "absorb" the $1000 loss.

For the Ad Board the case raises two major questions and leaves implicit a third:

Should drug pushing, apparently now large enough to involve shake downs and the absorption of substantial losses, be treated as an internal problem? Ad Board members expressed concern that Harvard may be becoming a

major repository of drugs, some for resale to high school students.

Should the transfer of drugs among friends be distinguished from sale for a profit?

Can use of marijuana, as opposed to sale or transfer or to use of harder drugs, be overlooked as a socially acceptable act?

Don't Deal

Consensus on the Board seems to be to continue to treat even selling as an internal problem, at least for the moment, and to punish drug use and transfer when they come to the Board's attention, though less severely than the Board punishes selling.

Equally complex issues were raised this mouth by an anonymous letter sent to Dean May accusing an undergraduate of peddling hard drugs. Copies of the letter were also sent to the undergraduate and, according to the letter, to the FBI. Dean May declined to comment on his action on the letter's contents, but he said he was "looking into the case."

Normally, rumors of drug pushing are left to individual senior tutors who, if they do anything, warn the student of the risks he is running with Harvard and with civil authorities.

The heroin incidents do not involve Harvard users, but they indicate that Harvard buildings have been used as drop-off sites for heroin and open the possibility that Harvard students are selling heroin to local high school students.

Last week, a Harvard policeman who was sent to the tenth floor of Holyoke Center to clear out high school students who often congregate there, found a "suspicious looking" man in the tenth floor lavatory. The man was brought to Harvard Police headquarters at Grays Hall and later turned over to the Cambridge police.

According to Chief Touis, the man had packets of heroin taped to his body and a syringe in his pocket. Two knives were concealed in his socks. Packets of heroin were also found taped to walls in the lavatory.

Earlier this month an Adams House janitor found two local high school students shooting heroin in an Adams House entryway and turned them over to Harvard police. Initial rumors that the students had gotten the drugs from Harvard undergraduates were denied yesterday by Dean May.