THE Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Wednesday, June 12, 1974 News Phone: 764-0552 Narcotics control THERE IS A SAD STORY of a 62 year old man who owned a small pharmacy in a town for 40 years. It was "the neighborhood drug store" type of place. He knew most of his customers by name and they knew him and loved him. Eventually, the neihborhood changed and the town became a city but the man still ran his drug store, many of his customers staying with him. As time went on, the number of hold-ups and rob- beries increased, all of them narcotic-related, and most by youniu peonte in search of money for their next fix or a drug to relieve them until they could obtain another fix, Last year, this man, who never had an enemy in the world, was held up. Because of federal narcotic laws (he carried very few addictive drugs) and because it was 8:00 a.m. (there was no money yet in the cash register), the armed robber shot this man point blank in the stomach and killed him. This story and ones similar can probably be told in hundreds of pharmacies across the country. In Ann Arbor alone, reported drug related crimes have skyrocketed in the past few years. Something must be done and down now to stop the horror of such in- cidents. MANY FEEL THAT the obvious answer is to get a hold on the big pushers throw them in jail and thus al- leviate the prohlem. That is the current approach that the federal euvernment is taking in an attempt to cease the drug nroblem aid it is not working. In several European countries they have legalized heroin. It is disnensed at local nharmacies at a very mini- mal cost. The consumer is given a card that allows him to purchase heroin and he is under the strict supervision of a doctor. Also. anvone who needs to get heroin for medi- cal reasons or reasons of addiction can go to a govern- ment-supervised clinic. The basis of such a program would be to gradually cut down the addict's need of heroin as he is under a doctor's care and it would massively cut down on the national crime rate. Statistics prove this theory to be true in both Sweden and Britain. Heroin would be easily available on demand of the pharnacist fromdthe government atea feasible price. The pharmacist will not stock narcotics in their stores and the addict will know that. - SINCE OUR CURRENT METHOD of controlling the drug problem in America today has obviously failed, it's about time that we became more realistic about the prob- lems, the problems of all those connected with narcotics, the pharmacist and the addict and re-evaluate our ap- proach and methods of narcotics control. -ANDREA LILLY ~OEr SI jE'fleiM:J E BSr-rN1 5 15RDCULOuS P -" ILI. to I I I T R HARRISON Justice ir By PAUL HASKINS SPRING OF 1970. In years past, the coming of spring had seen the University community submerged in the demands of academic ritual. But somehow things were different this year, this spring of 1970. A new intensity had gripped the campus, a forceful impatience had shaken its students, as if from their sleep. For years, they had demanded an end to in- justice - in Indochina, in Washington, in the Admissions Office of their own University. -But their cries had been met with indifference, con- descension - with empty promises and token concessions. The frustration had mounted and thrashed about within them, until it could no longer be contained. Somehow, it had managed to lay dor- mant through another disarming Ann Arbor win- ter, but with the life surge of spring, it burst forth in the form of defiant rage, a monster now too large for words alone to subdue. THE FRAGILE RETAINING WALL of admin- istrative diplomacy, unable to resist the now turbulent waves of dissatisfaction, first buckled before the Black Action Movement (BAM), then fell before the crushing sea of BAM sympathizers that followed. In the Spring of 1970, T. R. Harrison was an LS&A junior - a black man, a proud man on whom the electricity of those special days could not be lost. T. R. took up the cause of the Black Action Movement. He cried for the rights of his brothers and sisters to a fair shake, to equal representa- tion at this "public" institution. ("That's the way it's supposed to be; that's the way it's going to be!") In the Spring of 1970, T. R. Harrison stood proud, at the vanguard of the BAM strike that shook this university to its roots - a force to be reckoned with. ("No more pat answers, man. We want action, we want substance, we want justice now") HAM said 'NOW!' and the campus echoed 'NOW!' and the whole damn place just ground to a stumbling halt. THE REGENTS SAID JUMP, but it wouldn't j'mp. Verbal acrobatics could no longer appease the grumbling giant. And the air grew stifling and collars tightened in the Administration B'iilding. ("Who do they think they are? They can't do this! . . . We mustn't allow it. Theyve got to play by the rules . . . Oh, well, mi-vbe just this once.") So the Regents descended from their red tape tower. They hemmed and hawed and swallow- ed hard, -and finally acceded to the BAM demand, nromising a 10 percent minority enrollment by 1972. Another empty promise? ("It can't be .. No way ,it's on paper now . . It's policy, they're committed.") It was. 'Three springs have come and gone since that i process volatile spring of 1970. A fourth is now upon us. Only a handful of students remain who wit- nessed that virtuoso season's events. But T. R. Harrison remembers it well, for the local power elite have chosen him to, pay the price of their humiliation four years ago. In January of 1971, T. R. Harrison was tried in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, charged with the felonious assault of Ann Arbor Police Detective Paul Bunten dur- ing a BAM demonstration the year before. HARRISON CLAIMED HE was innocent. So did the sworn testimony of several witnesses, who said Harrison was never in a position to assault Bunten. They had been with him at the time of the alleged crime, and he had attacked nobody, they said. A policeman testified that the assail- ant had been wearing a hat. No hat was found on or near T. R. during the demonstration. The prosecution refused - to release official police photographs of the incident to the defense, until the Court ordered them to do so. When it was over, on Jan. 21, 1971, T. R. Har- rison had lost, convicted of felonious assault. An unjust trial, thought many. The Court of Appeals agreed. It overturned the lower court's verdict and declared a mistrial. It had found the pro- secution uncooperative in endorsing defense wit- nesses, the prosecuting attorney's argument pre- judicial. Justice had prevailed. But the passage of time has seen the minority student quota, a once-impressive monument to the hard-fought battles of the past, tumble like a house of cards. And, today, T. R. Harrison's fu- ture is threatened with a similar fate. .ON APRIL, S of this year, a motion to dismiss the charges against T. R. Harrison, now a third- year Michigan Law student, was dismissed in Judge Ager's courtroom in the County Building. The retrial will begin sometime this summer; a date has not been set yet. The state is certainly pressing hard for a con- viction. Why else would thousands of taxpayers' dollars be allotted for gathering witnesses now scattered across the country? Perseverance is too mild a term to describe the prosecution's ag- gressive pursuit of this case, nearly four years after charges were first brought against Harri- son. It's sad to think that our judicial system threat- ens to reject a man who has committed his life's work to the ideals of universal justice. As Harri- son puts it: "This case has opened my eyes to what the legal system is really like - the vast difference between theory and practice." But sadder and more frightening still is the possibility that members of this campus com- munity, who owe so much to the T. R. Harrisons of the past, may well sit idly by, unmoved and unmotivated during his trial; and, if so, undeserv- ing of the smoother road he helped build for them. Laos settlement: U. S. sellout? By JOHN EVERINGHAM VIENTIANE, LAOSi At the reception following in- augural ceremonies for the new laaos coalition government, the new Cabinet and Council mem- bers who smiled the most and shook the most hands were the pro-Communist Pathet Lao, led by P r i n c e Souphannouvong. Supporters of the American - backed Prince Souvanna. Phou- ma, Souphannouvong's half- brother, looked dour and angry. To these Royalists generals and members of Lao's wealthy fami- lies, this final triumph for in- ternational detent - the first internal settlement of the sec- ond Indochina war - repre- sents a sellout by their erst- while American allies. To many observers here, the Pathet-Lao -- who practice a strange mixture of socialist or- ganization, nationalism, Budd- hism, devotion to king, and smell-scalefre eenterprise, alt liberatty swstered down with traditional Lao tolerance-have every reason to emerge from their jungle hideouts pleased with this latest of Laos' three coaition attempts. AFTER *FOUR years of ne- gotiation, which the Pathet Lao initiated, the coalition which has emerged is almost identical to the one they proposed in 1970. On paper, the two new govern- mental bodies - Cabinet and Council, headed by Souvanna Phouma and Souphannouvong respectively - will be "collab- orating closely and in a regular manner" as independent and equal bodies "in the administra- tion of the affairs of the na- tion". Many of America's most re- liable right-wing friends in Laos feel the United States' support for the present coalition is in direct conflict with its continued fuelling of wars in both South Vietnam and Cambodia. As these former allies see it, this state of affairs could never have been reached without be- hind-the-scenes pressures and maneuvering by the Americans, and some former Royalist min- isters have said so bluntly. T h e "betrayed" Royalists, however, were not wronged as much as they claim. At the time of the February 19, 1973 cease-fire the Pathet Lao held such a commanding position on the battlefield that its complete control of the kingdom seemed only a matter of time. By pulling out when it did, the United States saved face by avoiding an ugly defeat. In twisting the arms of right-wing generals in Vientiane, Washing- ton merely turned the Royal- ists' losing military position into a losing political one. Jahn Everingham is a free- lance writert vho has spent six years in Indochina and is .fluent in Lao. Copyrirht, Pacific Neis Service, 1974. Contact your reps- Sen. Phillip Hart (Dem), Rm 253, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515. Sen. Robert Griffin (Rep), Rm 353, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515. Rep. Marvin Esch (Rep), Rn. 412, Cannon Bldg., Capitol Ilill, Washington, D.C. 20515. Sen. Gilbert Bursley (Rep), Senate, State Capitol Bldg., Lansing, Mi. 4N933. Rep. Perry Bullard (Dem), House of Representatives, State Capitol Bldg., Lansing, Mi. 48933.