'Don't Be a Dope' - Vellucci

"Don't be a dope/be smart/don't start/drugs kill" warn the posters that have popped up in many Cambridge store windows.

Alfred E. Vellucci, Mayor of Cambridge, said yesterday, "the majority of the people of Cambridge know there's a problem; they fear and tremor that. it might strike their own kids; and somebody should do something about it."

Bounty

Last fall, Vellucci suggested a $5000 or $10,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest of sellers and major pushers, respectively. "When I suggested a bounty," he said yesterday, "it was a Vellucci way of shocking the citizens into the realization that there was a drug problem. It succeeded."

He said that through his efforts the physicians at the Cambridge Hospital became aware of the drug problem, formed a committee to help solve it, and ended up with four beds set aside for drug withdrawal and with a methadone program.

Vellucci criticized Harvard's lack of cooperation in his anti-drug campaign. "We asked them for small amounts of financial aid," he said, "but so far our efforts have petered out. They come, they listen, they sympathized, and then they go away."

The thrust of his campaign, he said, is to get various committees and programs in Cambridge to coordinate their efforts to alleviate the drug problem. "I'm confused and shocked to see that the intellectual community-which wants to do something about drugs-is splintering itself when it should band together."

Vellucci said that he has a $1000 budget to work on the drug problem, of which $700 will remain after the current poster, bumper, and sticker campaign is finished. He added that M. I. T., unlike Harvard, donated $100 to help defray costs.