Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Freaking
out
in
Morocco
9
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1971
NIGHT EDITOR: ARTHUR LERNER
Busing and the Governor
OV. WILLIAM MILLIKEN'S announce-
ment Wednesday that he will appeal
a federal judge's ruling that Detroit's
schools are illegally segregated was an
expediency designed to relieve pressure
on Lansing and anti-busing furor around
the state, without facing the crucial is-
sues presented by the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Roth
ruled that Detroit's school system is se-
7 gregated de jure - by law - as a result
of official "actions and inactions" by gov-
ernmental agencies and authorities, in-
cluding the state. Roth has made no of-
ficial ruling yet, but has implied that
he may order busing either within De-
troit or between Detroit and its outlying
suburbs.
Since Roth has not announced a final
* ruling, or ordered any busing yet, Milli-
ken is directing his premature appeal at
the finding of illegal segregation. He
contends that state offiicals did not in-
tentionally design, create or maintain
segregated schools.
However, legal decisions can not be
# based on the intentions of state officials,
but rather on the constitutionality and
the social effects of the laws and policies
the officials carry out. The effects of poll
taxes in Southern towns, for example,
was discriminatory, regardless of w h a t
Southern authorities intended when they
imposed a fee on prospective voters. Poor
people, and therefore black people, were
less able to pay the tax.
BUSING IS AT BEST a partial measure
towards equalization of educational
opportunities in the state. Other p r o-
grams, such as Milliken's proposed re-
placement of local property tax funding
of education with a statewide income tax,
would do more to alleviate the imbalance
in wealth which allows the more well-to-
do neighborhoods the better-funded and
higher-class schools. Such programs can-
not be implemented immediately, hence
busing takes on more pressing import-
ance.
It is often maintained by opponents
of busing that inter-city busing between
Detroit and its suburbs would be uncon-
stitutional. But this is an empty argu-
ment. School district lines are arbitrary
boundaries. The constitution does not
specify any sovereign rights of cities, let
alone suburbs, in its delineations of the
powers of states. In his decision, R o t h
noted the subsequent discrimination when
school districts are set up with inherent
obstacles to racial equality.
Suburban citizens bitterly complain
that they pay higher taxes than Detroit
citizens for the higher quality schools
they maintain. This is simply untrue. De-
troit has a higher tax rate than virtually
every community in Southeastern Mich-
igan. However, the city's population is
unable to maintain the same level of
educational facilities, because it is too
poor, which Judge Roth argued, is a par-
tial result of the actions of official agen-
cies around the state.
A third argument holds that inner-city
busing would be took costly and not worth
all the trouble. This argument may be
true. But if so, busing foes and the gov-
ernor should study the problem further,
gather facts, and present-their objections
to busing and their well thought out al-
ternatives to Roth before he makes his
final ruling.
INSTEAD OF TAKING a stand affirm-
ing his support of efforts to bring
equality to Michigan education, G o v.
Milliken has taken the easy way out, by
responding to hysteria with submission,
instead of awaiting a final ruling be-
fore initiating an appeal.
-ARTHUR LERNER
By DANIEL ZWERDLING
Daniel Zwiverdling, forner Daily Mag-
azine Editor, currently writes for the
Neu Republic.
TALES OF MOROCCO waft north to a
small cafe beneath the White Cliffs
of Dover. John W- has hauled his knap-
sack 500 miles across France and Spain
eager to enter the Moroccan paradise
where hash and kif are as cheap as Coca-
Cola.
He arrives at the border, a passport
stamp away from the pearl of the Mag-
hreb, when suddenly the douane demands
that he cut off all his hair nurtured six
months at Ohio State. He turns back to
Dover a bitter man. "It's not cutting my
hair I mind, .I mean I can grow it back,"
he says. "It's the principle. I just want
to travel around Morocco, play my guitar,
smoke some dope, not bother anybody.
But I don't cut my hair because someone
tells me I have to. It seems childish, man,
but it isn't. It isn't. Someone please tell
me it isn't?"
For American and Europeanfreaks, re-
jection at the lvoroccan border is like a
Moslem being turned away from the gates
of Mecca. And for thousands of college
age Americans this year (10,000 rate as
"genuine hippies" estimates an American
embassy official), traditional Moslem
Morocco has become the counter culture
mecca\ an exotic nation where life is
slow, cheap, always in the sun, and with-
in easy reach of Kennedy International.
The influx produces a bizarre mix of
cultures. Western students or dropouts
from universities whose annual tuition
would support a Moroccan family of 12,
embrace a miserably impoverished nation
ruled by a strongarm monarchy. Long-
haired freaks sip mint tea in the shade
of grubby cafes, sharing tokes of the
hash pipe with grizzled old Moslems swath-
ed in robes and turbans.
"I WAS TAKING a taxi from the Casa-
blanca airport with this old Arab guy
in the front seat," says a high s c h o o I
senior from Royal Oak, whom I met eat-
ing pastries at a sidewalk cafe. "We were
This is the first in a series of six articles
Daniel Zwerdin is writing on cotemporary
life in North Africa and the Middle East.
The next installment will concern Morocco's
political climate.
talking broken English and somewhere in
the conversation I said the word 'hash.' So
he pulled out a hash pipe and lit it up
and grinned. My first hour in Morocco
and I'm already sailing from the airport."
Americans first discovered Morocco 10
years ago when beat generation expatriat-
es like William Burroughs flocked to Tan-
gier, a tough little port town where good
dope could fertilize the imagination on a
writer's salary. In 1968, the counter cul-
ture generation found it - and the num-
ber of Americans in Morocco skyrocket-
ed to 120,000 last year, second only to the
French.
They stand out everywhere in 'their
Moroccan embroidered tunics, which only
foreigners wear. Some are well heeled stu-
dents en route to Rome or Tel Aviv. You
find others like Alex, a 40 year old former
accountant who left Chicago on a three
week vacation 16 years ago and never went
back.
Morocco also attracts a small number of
straight types on business - like the
Vietnam veteran whom Moroccan police
discovered was ferrying kif to Europe on
American military transports.
Everybody finds what they're looking for
in Morocco. You drop from Spain into
Tangier to take a quick dip in Moroccan
society, hoping to buy some cheap drugs
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countries sprawled in a room overlooking
a dirt courtyard. Some straw prayer mats,
a sheepskin rug, a candle and some hash
pipes are scattered on the floor; someone
has scrawled "Politics plus Money equals
War" in pastels on the white adobe wall.
They're eating the day's meal, hunks of
bread and butter and lukewarm hot cho-
colate made from well water which gives
me diarrhea. "Do you have any dope
to smoke?" someone asks me. "I've got to
find some dope," he says, and leaves.
Everyone else lays silent, too hot and too
stupefied to move. Only one girl, an 18
year old from New York, starts to speak.
One month ago all her clothes and money
were stolen. She discovered who did it
(they're sitting stoned in this same room)
and they got pangs of guilt (stealing
wasn't hip) and invited her to stay with
them. Two days ago she cashed some new
checks. They were stolen again. But she
won't leave because "there's no place else
I want to go."
"People who live here aren't so cool
about possessions, but they really share
(heir dope," a Swedish boy tells me with
admiration. "One guy walked all the way
to Essaouira one day just to find some
hash. He could only buy enough for one
joint because that's all the money he had.
He came back here, rolled it and really
passed it around."
THE COLONY has dwindled a bit since
Moroccan police, on one- of their periodic
raids; recently deported several hundred
kids with over-extended visas. Others have
moved to Hut Springs, a clump of bam-
boo shacks up the muddy river. The
police also busted Mustafa the pusher, a
potential disaster but, being a Moroccan,
he left jail one day on a well placed
bribe. Now the dope flows again.,
An occasional American gets arrested
but for major freak colonies, Diabet and
Essaouira have had surprisingly little
trouble. "Most hippies and Moroccans live
in harmony here," a young gendarme told
me. Not like the Spanish island of Ibezia,
where gun and club toting police fought 400
kids this summer in a bloody beach battle.
"I went to talk with the hippies and I
think they're just trying to get away from
the hustle and bustle of modern life," says
American chief consul Fred Gerlach.
"Without question they're smoking kif
down there, but that's not the main rea-
son they've come. And I don't think there's
any sexual perversity."
With a little money you can live for-
ever in Diabet. Fishermen on the Essaou-
times we'll be visiting one kid in prison
and accidentally find another whom we
never knew about."
If you've heard dope is legal in Morocco,
forget it, Moroccan laws prohibit the cul-
tivation, sale or possession of drugs (they
lump hash with cocaine and opium) and
provide stiff penalties - up to two years
in jail and a $2400 fine just for possession.
Still, anyone can buy kif from a merchant
in the medina and Moroccans, mostly old
men, smoke openly in cafes and barber-
shops. "Kif is their alcohol," the assistant
minister of tourism told me. The Koran
doesn't forbid it like wine and liquor.
"We don't arrest anybody if he's j u s t
smoking a joint by himself, not publicizing
it or giving it to others," Hamoud says.
Police hit the pushers or quantity buy-
ers, or "kids who rent a house in the
medina and form a veritable 'club du
kif,' " he says.
Big drug dealers get trapped by the
numerous police roadblocks- along the
mountain road leading to Ketama, kif
capital of the Rif Mountain country in
the north. Little boys hold out bricks of
the stuff when you stop for a drink at
roadside stands. A kilo worth $125 here
will wholesale for $1500 back home -
which explains why so many kids are will-
ing to take the risks. Naive buyers are
arbitrarily (and erroneously) declares that
all kif and chirra, a concentrate, are mix-
ed with 10 per cent tobacco. So drug
offenders pay not only the drug fines;
but a fine for violating the state tobacco
monopoly laws as well. That can add up
to $5000 - a fortune in Morocco, where
the average wage is $1.28 a day. And
then, there are always some extra "court
costs" - payable directly to the judge,
prosecutor and various other court func-
tionaries. "When I ask the judge how to
get my boyfriend out of jail, he tells me
'Bring the money and we'll see what we
can do,'" says the Baltimore woman. An
American official explains: "The Moroc-
cans need some incentive for doing a good
job."
"I'VE GOT TO SPLIT." A frustrated
Bostonian is watching farmers load bleat-
ing goats on the luggage rack of a 5 a.m.
bus from Marrakech to Tangier. "We're
tired of being sick, puking in disgusting
bathrooms and having bugs crawling all
over us."
Almost every American who spends more
than one week in Morocco reaches a crisis
point where, racked by diarrhea from the
water and uncooked vegetables, 'the sight
of flies crusted on severed sheeps heads
in the markets and the pervasive smell of
dung and urine loses its romantic flavor
and turns sour. You yearn for Yonkers.
Despairing visitors at the American em-
bassy in Casablanca, most of them freaks,
have left thick stacks of SOS cards plead-
ing for help. "Lost friend and was robbed,"
writes one: "My friend is sick with hepa-
titis," says another. "No money, feeling
uncomfortable, on verge of nervous break-
down" ("when we told that guy his broth-
er was in jail in Tangier he burst out
laughing," recalls Hicks.
And one complained he was' swindled.
"He met a Moroccan who showed him the
town and then took him home," says Hicks.
"He gave the Moroccan $100 to send him
some hash. But he came to us cmplaining:
" 'I don't think he'll send it to me.'
Since 1965 when a scant 100 Americans
shuffled to the embassy for assistance
the number has soared to over 1100 last
year. "Our major problem -with these kids,
besides drug arrests, is that they're in-
credibly naive and irresponsible and fool-
ish - and sometimes dishonest," says Ger-
lach. "They are forever getting robbed:
their bags, their passports, their money.
They come to us with absolutely nothing
and expect us to take care of them. It's
always a shock to learn that we aren't
prepared to do anything for them but send
one cable to family or friends. "All my
stuff was ripped off last night on the
beach," a forlorn kids tells me. "I'm us-
ually more careful but I was really wreck-
ed on far out hash."
The embassy grants emergency pass-
ports but "we're cautious now," Gerlach
says. "Hippies ask for new passports when
they haven't really lost them." A new pass-
port gains three extra months in Morocco;
while the old one earns a tidy profit on
the black market. But the biggest money
maker yet is a headache for American
Express: sell your travelers checks in the
medina for one half face value, report them
lost and collect the full value again from
American Express. "That's how I got
my Nikon," one kid tells me. "And a plane
ticket back to New York."
4
The Sinclair case
DENIED JUSTICE and denied b o n d,
John Sinclair has been incarcerated
in state prisons for the last 27 months
for /the possession of two marijuana cigar-
ettes.
The severity of Sinclair's sentence has
been a ploy on the part of the govern-
ment to imprison Sinclair on the basis of
his political beliefs as leader of the White
Panther Party (now Rainbow People's
Party) - devoted to radical political,
economic and social change within so-
ciety.
Two young men in Monroe C i t y,
Michigan, who were apprehended with
2000 pounds of marijuana were sentenc-
ed to 2i/2 to 5 years. Beatrice Ford, who
still hag three grand jury indictments for
sale of cocaine pending, was sentenced
by Detroit Recorder's Court to 81 /2 o 10
years for possession of about two pounds
of cocaine (worth about $10,000.)
In fact, a narcotics agent for the De-
Editorial Staff
ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ
Editor
JIM BEATTIE DAVE CHUDWIN
Executive Editor Managing Editor
STEVE KOPPMAN----------Editorla, Page Editor
RICK PERLOFF .. Associate Editorial Page Editor
PAT MAHONEY .. Assistant Editorial Page Editor
LARRY LEMPERtT ..... Associate Managing Editor
LYNN WEINER .........Associate Managing Editor
ANITA CRONE ........ Arts Editor
JIM IRWIN Associate Arts Editor
ROBERT CONROW ....s.Books Editor
JANET FREY ............ Personnel Director
JIM JUDKIS ...... .... Photograi "v Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Rose Sue Berstein, Lindsay Chaney,
Mark Dlilen, Sara Fitzgerald, Tammy Jacobs, Alan
Lenhoff, Arthur Lerner, Hester Pulling, Carla
Rapoport, Robert Schreiner, W.E. Schrock, Geri
Sprung.
COPY EDITORS: Pat Bauer, Chris Parks, Gene Robin-
son
DAY EDITORS: Linda Dreeben, John Mitchell, Han-
nah Morrison, Beth Oberfelder, Tony Schwartz,
Gloria Jane Smith, Ted Stein, Paul Travis, Marcia
Zoslaw.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Robert Barkin, Jan
Benedetti, Steve Brummel, Janet Gordon, Lynn
Sheehan,, Charles Stein.
Sports Staff
MORT NOVECK, Sports Editor
JIM KEVRA, Executive Sports Editor
RICK CORNFELD ... C Associate Sports Editor
TERRI POUCHEY-----Contributing Sports Editor
troit Police department said last night
that Detroit Recorders Court will rarely
sentence a man convicted for sale or
possession of heroin or cocaine at all,
unless it is his third or fourth conviction.
And even then, he said, the mandatory
20 years is seldom, if ever, given.
And then there is John Sinclair who
was sentenced, also by Recorder's Court
to 91/2 to 10 years for possesion of two
marijuana cigarettes.
SINCLAIR, WHO HAS been in jail all this
. time awaiting his appeal, was denied
bond several weeks ago by the State Su-
preme Court. Yet, that same body grant-
ed Eric Lorentzen $2500 appeal bond on
a marijuana sale charge.
The inequities of these sentences can
only point to the conclusion that Sin-
clair is in jail for his political beliefs and
not merely for possession of two joints.
But, in addition to the political over-
tones of the sentencing, it is apparent
that Sinclair's arrest itself was a frame-
up.
The Detroit Recorders Court has al-
ready ruled that Sinclair was entrapped
into selling the marijuana; and it there-
fore dismissed as evidence the two cigar-
ettes he had rolled at the persistent re-
quest of two undercover agents. Yet those
same cigarettes were allowed as evidence
of possession. Because the sale was an en-
trapment, the possession charge m u s t
have constituted an entrapment as well.
For had the agents requested the mari-
juana, it would not have been discovered.
Now, with the case before the State
Supreme Court, if the Court cannot real-
ize the illegality of the sentencing for
political reasons, it should at least re-
cognize the illegality of entrapment.
It is up to the Court to overturn the
hypocrisy of a law which classifies mari-
juana in the same category as heroin, de-
manding the same harsh penalties for
both - something now recognized in
communities such as Ann Arbor and
Grosse Pointe - which have passed ord-
inances with much lesser penalties f o r
Everybody finds what they're looking for in Morocco.
You drop from Spain into Tangier to t a k e a quick dip in
Moroccan society, hoping to buy some cheap drugs to keep
you supplied the rest of your journey. The freaks are lining
the cafes, walking the narrow cobbled streets smeared with
donkey droppings. You don't look for d r u g s; ,long hair
brings the dope hustlers to you. 10 on a slow day. "Psssst,"
they hiss from behind your ear. "You want some good dope
cheap?" Hash runs about 15 cents an ounce.
:::x.54?}:": . :'rYsssis ass ms smi a :"ii>:s ssu stsi {:$::'m ss
snared by the widespread network of in-
formers: the man who sells you hash on
the streets is likely to report you to the
police, collect two-thirds of your fine and
,get most of his dope back -for the next
sale.
DRUG CASES are cut and dried. You go
to court for your 15 minute trial, hear the
prosecutor's testimony, listen to the con-
fession you gave the police, and then
go to jail. "I give kids lists of lawyers,
but I wouldn't recommend hiring one," says
assistant American counsul Irving Hicks.
"They're a waste of time and money."
Sentences for small time offenders aver-
age three months, but some get off on
suspended sentences - like one college
Junior from Iowa, grabbed in a hip hotel
in Marrakech, whose mother called long
distance every day to plead mercy: grand-
mother was sick and she needed ,her son
back home.
Fines usually range from about $1500,
"But we can often bargain them down
to what the kid has in his pockets," says
an embassy official. "It's like buying shirts
in the markets."
Horror stories of foreign prisons, courtesy
of the Pentagon Stars and Stripes and
Readers Digest, fill the bulletin boards of
consulate offices, but you just have to
learn firsthand to believe them.
I tracked down a young woman from
Baltimore whose arrest six months a g o
filled Moroccan papers. She just got out
early because she's pregnant. Her boy-
friend is in for two more years. They've
been in the clink before for big time
dealing. "It's pure torture, the Spanish
Inquisition, the Bastille all over again,"
she said. To obtain her friend's confession,
the police "beat him, chained him over-
night to a tree, handcuffed him under his
knees, suspended him upside down from
a pole and poured water over a towel
wrapped around his head," she'said.
She got off easier. "About 20 of us
lived cramped in a filthy bare concrete
room. There were no mats to sleep on-
we got two blankets each. In winter the
cells aren't heated and they leave the
WnrIM .O,, fnn, rn +hn 'rai n nvnP in Tf
to keep you supplied the rest of your
journey. The freaks are lining the cafes,
walking the narrow cobbled streets smear-
ed with donkey droppings. You don't look
for drugs; long hair brings the dope hust-
lers to you, 10 on a slow day. "Psssst,"
they hiss from behind your ear. "You want
some good dope cheap?" Hash runs about
15 cents an ounce.
OR FREAKS flock to Marrakech, es-
pecially from October to December when
the head drops. In the Djemma El Fna,
the central marketplace, up to 15.000
Moroccans and tourists flow around snake
charmers, African drummers, acrobats and
dancers, medicine men with bottled worms,
s ory tellers; belt makers and pipe sellers
grab your arm, whisper into your ears,
hawking their wares from the rising of the
scorching southern sun until midnight.
ira docks sell eight charcoal broiled sar-
dines with lemon and onions for 8 cents,
and a bowl of soup heaped with chick peas
for 3 cents. A cozy house with courtyard
and three or four bedrooms runs about
$40 a month. But these freaks are forever
broke. "They never work," a local shop-
owner says with disgust. "See those three
pasing by now? They can't even afford
my yogurt." "We hustle money in every
conceivable way," says a Diabet freak
from New Jersey.- He stopped in town for
a couple of days last spring and has no
plans to leave. "We steal, we beg, we make
hash cookies and necklaces, we push dope,"
he says. "Got to go man. I've got to find
me some smoke."
WHEN 10.000 American freaks -flood into
a culture like Morocco, you can expect
some trouble. "Since the big influx of
See MOROCCO, Page 7