By Anna Griffin, The Oregonian
May perhaps 04, 2010, 6:03PM
University college students experiment. They adjust hairstyles, majors, even sexual orientations. And at Reed University, as on most campuses, some experiment with illegal drug treatments.
That’s the way it is often been. Smart children do dumb elements to support determine who they’re.
That is why some college students and alumni in the prestigious Southeast Portland school had been taken aback last month when local prosecutors demanded that Reed adopt a “zero tolerance” tactic to illegal medicines or possibility losing federal funding.
Within the eve of Renn Fayre, the end-of-year celebration, Multnomah County District Lawyer Mike Schrunk and U.S. Lawyer Dwight Holton reminded Reedies that two of their personal died lately from heroin overdoses.
“There continues to be this two-tiered medication policy at Reed, with several standards for distinct medications,” Holton mentioned. “The result can be an unofficial legitimizing of all medication use.”
Here’s the underlying truth: Nobody thinks drug treatments will disappear from campus. They’d just such as exceedingly intelligent men and women at Reed — each college students and administrators — to accomplish what a Reed education teaches: contemplate just about every angle and pick wisely.
University guides be aware the quick access Reed college students appreciate to marijuana and hallucinogens. Controlled mayhem will be the name from the geeky game at Renn Fayre. Even the faculty handbook’s section on prescription drugs begins on a grudging be aware: “Drug and alcohol use is really a complex and controversial topic. Quite a few would argue that public policy on medication and alcohol use have been counterproductive, discouraging rational analysis of substance use, abuse and addiction…”
Student leaders say the degree of campus abuse has become overblown by Reed’s countercultural rep and openness about medicines. “We’ve been portrayed as spoiled or out of manage,” mentioned Celia Hassan, Reed’s student physique president. “The truth is that individuals below function incredibly difficult and earn a fantastic deal of autonomy.”
I’m with Hassan about the broader point. If everybody on campus is really a stoner, why do countless Reed graduates do numerous excellent points?
However I also get exactly where prosecutors are coming from. Heroin is back. The folks who fight crime are desperate to stay clear of a meth-like epidemic of overdoses and violence.
Reed college students, normally a lot more affluent and open to experimentation, are an appealing marketplace for sellers. Administrators and pupils draw intellectual distinctions concerning marijuana and a lot more considerable narcotics — “Heroin isn’t condoned the following, not whatsoever,” Hassan claimed. But prosecutors properly be aware that 1 can lead to a different, especially when the door is currently open to sellers.
“If this ended up just a bunch of individuals smoking pot, we wouldn’t be getting this conversation,” Holton explained. “At identical time, an illegal medication is surely an illegal medication. That message has to get clear and unambiguous.”
Nevertheless this predicament is undeniably ambiguous, just like the broader “war on medications.” Police do not have the time to arrest every single Reedie having a joint. Administrators and alums rightly cherish Reed’s reputation for intellectual exploration. Nobody wants an surroundings where college students who will need guide are as well worried about legal consequences to look for it.
The buttoned-down prosecutor along with the student leader which includes a stud in her nose equally circle close to towards identical simple answer: honest conversations in between the card-carrying adults and also the pupils who desire to be treated that way.
“Simply saying, ‘Don’t do prescription drugs,’ isn’t likely to do the job with our student physique,” Hassan stated. “You require to take a far more intellectual method.”
“Discourse is probably the most successful path to alter at Reed,” Holton claimed. “In a sense, the letter was a way to obtain everyone’s attention.”
– Anna Griffin
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