Page 4-Saturday, February 16, 1980-The Michigan Daily
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
vol. XC, No. 113 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Let's not be April Fools,
How President Carter's drug
promises went up in smoke
atthisyears
URRY, HURRY! Step right up
and get your tickets! In just
about six weeks, that most enter-
taining time of the University year will
be upon us. On April 1 we will celebrate
the always mirthful April Fool's Day,
and on April 2 and 3 we will greet the
often hilarious Michigan Student
Assembly (MSA) general elections.
It will be hard to top last year's
festivities. Following hard on the heels
of the jolly Hash Bash, the MSA elec-
tions were a three-ring circus replete
with clowns and daring acrobatics.
Allegations of ballot-box stuffing,
unethical electioneering, and dishonest
vote certification were tossed back and
forth between contending parties like
so many juggler's pins. Missing polling
places, understaffed polling places,
and even polling places staffed by can-
didates running in the election resem-
bled fraudulent circus side-show
booths more than they did legitimate
voting stations.
The 4,800 students who bought
ticketsto this MSA circus - by voting
in the election - got the greatest show
on earth as the weeks wore on. Can-
didates bickered, parties growled, and
the Central Student Judiciary (CSJ)
roused itself and stepped in to perform
as lion-tamer. But inside the fetid cage
of the election controversy, standingt
between two fierce and hungry lions,
CSJ backed away and refused to cer-
Women win
MSA circUs
tify the election.
Finally, last summer, at the request
of the owners of the circus - the
Regents - ,the vice-president for
student services took over as
ringmaster of the whole affair, cer-
tified the election, and monitored the
funding decisions of the student gover-
nment.
In recent months, the MSA circus
has not really left town; rather, it has
closed its doors and hung out a sign
reading "Will Re-Open Soon with All-
New, Bigger and Better Show."
Last Wednesday, a new act was
recruited - the 1980 Election Board.
This board will choose an elections
director, oversee the election process,
and decide on rule infractions. In other
words, vit will have responsibility for
running the show.
The board had better do a good job.
That the Regents should control
student government and decide on its
legitimacy is a truly tragi-comic
situation. If this year's elections prove
to be an even bigger circus than last
year's, however, MSA will never lose
its laughing-stock image. The faculty,
administration, and Regents will con-
tinue to snicker at the playtime ac-
tivities of a pretend student gover-
nment that can't even elect its own
representatives competently.
The students cannot afford to be.
April Fools again.
ne, u fight
Cast against the shivering
fears of a new cold war, the con-
cerns' of American pot smokers
might seem to be the least impor-
tant issue facing President Car-
ter in his campaign for re-
election. But proponents of a
liberalized national drug policy
played an important role in Jim-
my Carter's election, and now
they aren't likely to forget the
President as quickly as he forgot
them.
Carter not only launched his
presidential bid on the proceeds
from dope-smokey rock concerts,
but some of his closest advisors
credited his narrow 1976 victory
margin to the millions of young
marijuana smokers who expec-
ted Carter to end federal laws
against pot smoking. Midway
through that campaign Carter
became the first presidential
candidate in American history to
promise decriminalization of
marijuana for personal use. Now,
four. years later, he is the can-
didate least likely to win support
of the so-called "pot lobby."
HOW CARTER lost the support
of the marijuana legalization ad-
vocates is not only one of the
quirky sidelights to Washington
politics, but it also illustrated the
greater importance of changing
policies within the federal gover-
nment toward drug abuse.
Most of the original enthusiasm
dope smokers had for Jimmy
Carter stemmed from his appoin-
tment of Peter Bourne, a
physician well known for his
liberal views on drug and cocaine
use, as his chief White House
drug policy advisor. Bourne,
most observers believed, would
curtail the influence of the
federal Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration (DEA) and other
police agencies. At first that ap-
peared to be the direction White
House policy would go.
Keith Stroup, the founder and
former director of the National
Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML), had
long been a friend of Bourne's
and was an early supporter of
Carter. The early days of the Car-
ter administration were heady
days for Stroup.
"AFTER ALL those years on
the outside, suddenly it looked
like we were going to be insiders.
It was like we were all working
on the same side for a change,"
he said in a recent interview.
Stroup was a regular at the White
House, a man who commanded
respect from both the press and
Washington's inside social cir-
cles.
By mid-summer, when the
President announced he would
soon present a drug policy
message to Congress, Stroup's in-
fluence had ;grown so great that
he wrote the first draft of the
President's speech-including a
specific pledge to decriminalize
the private use of marijuana.
"It was a very special sort of
marriage we had in those days,"
said Robert Carr, then a drug
task force coordinator for ,the
President's Commission on Men-
tal Health. "Marijuana smoking
in public was fairly widespread
and pretty casual. There was
a sense of celebration that
smokers were finally out of the
closet and could socialize with
people of high esteem."
UNDER BOURNE'S leader-
ship, Carr said, there was a
general belief that the Carter
Administration was going to
transform the entire direction of
federal drug policy, concen-
trating law enforcement only on
'heroin and other hard narcotics.
That expectation was further
reinforced by the casual activity
of marijuana among even top
White House staff.
By Frank Browning
"THE DEPARTURE of Peter
Bourne from the White House
marked the beginning of the end
of any kind of enlightened drug
policy in America," advisor Bob
Carr says. "Beyond the White
House there was a retreat on all
fronts and considerable distrust.
the coalition just fell apart."
With Bourne out, Stroup and
the rest of the NORML staff had
become personae non gratae with
the same White House staffers
who had previously been so
friendly.
Said one former top speech
maker, "Dope? There's really
nothing in it for Carter anymore.
The only reason Jimmy bothered
with the drug question at all was
that it was Peter Bourne's
specialty. He owed Bourne anlot.
Bourne was his first big liberal
champion in Washington during
the early campaign. But with
Bourne gone, and stories floating
around that the White House was
a dope den, the issue was too hot
to walk the wire with it. It's not
that the White House shifted to a
hard line. It's just that nobody
tment conference on drug abuse
last summer, "The ad-
ministration strongly opposes the
use of marijuana and is taking
several actions to further
discourage its use in this coun-
try."
Besides the new hard line an-
ti-grass speeches, Dogoloff has
worked closely with the DEA
Director Peter Bensinger in sup '
port of Congressional hearings
aimed at outlawing drug
paraphernalia - a campaign
regarded by the pot lobbyists at
NORML as blatantly uncon-
stitutional. Staff members at the
House Committee on Narcotics
as well as Senate committee staff
whose job it is to follow drug
policyrsay that the Ad-
ministration has given almost
free rein to Bensinger and th
DEA. h
DEA spokesman Con Dougher-
ty acknowledges that his agency
has taken the lead in setting
policy and that the policy is very
different from the Carter cam-
paign commitments of four years
ago. Speaking of several tough
anti-marijuana speeches made
by DEA Director Bensinger,
Dougherty explained that "he
wanted to make it clear that th
federal government would not
decriminalize marijuana."
Dougherty added, "The White
House is not making any bones
about making the DEA the lead
agency in drug enforcement and
also the expert on what's going on
with drugs. We don't have to wait
for the White House to decide
we're going to crack down. We're
the experts."
Walter Shapiro, a forme
Labor Department official and
Carter speech writer who worked
in the first campaign, attributes
the shift to the problems of run-
ning 'an incumbent campaign.
"Drugs were a big issue in '76 and
Carter could attack the failures
and abuses of the Republicans.
But now the Democrats-Ken-
nedy, Brown and Carter-see
drugs as nothing more than an..
embarrassment. The thing is,
now the Democratic constituency
is split down the middle on drugs:
50 per cent are opposed to a more
permissive position, 25 per cent
favor it and 25 per cent are on the
fence. They just want to make
drugs as low key an issue as
possible to avoid trouble. A sell-
out on a vital issue,?: Actually, it's
just that you've got to realize that
drugs are not a good issue for
Democrats."
Frank Browning is co-
author of a forthcoming book
about crime in America. He
wrote this piece for the Pacific
News Service.
against sexism
'I, most ai
HE LIST of issues that has at- m a
± tracted the public eye of late is so practice
long that earlier concerns seem to practice
recalled
have dropped out of sight. Iran, insuran
Afghanistan, energy, inflation, and are very
November's elections have thrust their The A
way into the headlines, onto the covers acori
of the national newsmagazines, and in- issuedi
to Americans' minds. discrimi
One of the former media favorites ployees,
that seems to have settled out of the doing ti
picture ik feminism. Part of the their ch
difficulty, perhaps, is that concern for There
the female half of humanity had out- over the
stayed its welcome in the largely male- Judge
dominated media. The growing in- disparat
fluence of the "me"-ness of the last from be
decade made a difference as well, no Women
doubt. Men in powerful positions than me
couldn't be bothered with the untapped witness
resources of those they patronizingly more
called their "better halves." Certainly, se, the
the worsening employment picture being he
made workers uneasy about en- not havi
couraging even more competition to nes wa
enter the labor market. ones,n
But, lest Americans forget, the gains The
the women's movement made during congratu
the '70s did not even come close to The judg
equalizing men's and women's lot in sensible
goes on
reas. The long battle that
s necessary against sexist
and policy was poignantly
by a decision against a large
ce firm whose headquarters
close to home, indeed.
kutomobile Club of Michigan,
ng to a federal court ruling
Thursday, has systematically
nated against its female em-
paying them less than men
he same work and hindering
ances-for advancement.
has been some improvement
years at the Automobile Club,
John Feikens found, but
e treatment of the sexes is far
eing completely eradicated.
were customarily paid less
en doing similar work - one
estimated the difference at
an $12,000 a year. And of cour-
perennial problem of women
rded into less-skilled jobs, and
ing a fair shot at the better
as found to be rampant at the
ce agency as well.
plaintiffs are to be
ulated for their persistence.
ge is to be congratulated for a
and just ruling.
The so-called permissive drug
policy might well have redirected
the entire federal effort on drug.
abuse but for two devastating
events:
-the spraying of Mexican
marijuana fields with paraquat
supplied by the Drug Enfor-
cement Administration spawned
a health panic among marijuana
users in spring, 1978, and an
angry exchange between NOR-
ML and Peter Bourne who sup-
ported the program;
-Bourne was compromised by
revelations in June, 1978, that he
had written a phony prescription
for Quaalude depressants for a
staff member, then was later for-
ced to resign. NORML's Keith
Stroup told the press that Bourne
had snorted cocaine at the
organization's annual party half
a year later.
there was making any drug
policy so. the direction was left to
the DEA, which has always taken
the hard line against grass.''
OFFICIALLY the Carter Ad-
ministration still supports
decriminalization of small
amounts of marijuana for per-
sonal use. Lee Dogoloff, formerly
Bourne's assistant and now the
official administration
spokesman, says he does "not
agree with the notion of putting
young persons in jail for the first
offense of a one-time small
amount of marijuana." However,
he has been far more outspoken in
campaigning against the dangers
of marijuana than he has on
pressing Congress for
decriminalization. Clearing up a
"general misundersanding about
the White House position,"
Dogoloff told a Defense Depar-
LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
Ford captained the ship of state well
..
To the Daily:
Being an admirer of President
Ford I wrote the enclosed poem
dedicated to him and mailed it to
the White House for arrival a few
days ahead of the change of
government. The White House
acknowledged the poem with
thanks.
At this time the Ship's course
seems uncertain again. I am sen-
ding the poem to you for possible
publication in The Michigan
Daily as a reminder of the con-
fidence with which President
Ford steered the Ship through
rough waters.
Our Ship of State was launch-
ed with home ports
Up and down the A tlantic
coast
Then she berthed at home
ports on the Gulf
And of home ports on the
Pacific she could later
boast
A dded home ports in Alaska
and Hawaii
And built a canal across the
Isthmus to shorten her
course
Picked up port islands all
around the world
So on the seven seas her flag
was unfurled
Her captains were men of
mrnirit and ram,.
Hailing from a metropolis or
a small to wn
Steering her through the
storms of war
Toward a lasting peace seen
afar
Contesting the internal
struggles of depression
And all the signals of
economic recession
Anchoring the most
admirable nation
Since the very dawn of
creation
Sailing in home ports a mighty
storm struck her
Tearing out of control on a
course of disaster
A big gun burst loose and
rolled around the deck
Battering and ramming intent
upon a wreck
In attempting to restrain the
rampaging gun
Many crewmen were
demolished one by one
To prevent further harm the
captain did personally
strive
But his methods did not
permit him to survive
The succeeding captain of
rn ,n i ;..,t .;,,,t...
boldness
Handled the righting of the
ship with great coolness
Shackled the gun that caused
the most harm
Andformulated plans to
quieten the alarm
Soon the ship was back
on an even keel
Greene endorsement unfair
Tranquility returned which all
the crew could feel
Again the ship'sflag flies high
above the mast
A trying time in her voyage
now past.
-Harry Barnes
Feb. 9
" ~
To the Daily: .
I think it is important that your
paper set the record straight in
regard to the Ann Arbor News'
recent endorsement of Earl
Greene for re-election to the City
Council. The News refuses to give
us space to respond.
In making its endorsement, the
News scrupulously observed
.none of the regular ethical
procedures for supporting a can-
didate. The News never ,once
asked Stacy Stephanopoulos to
talk with its editors. Even if their
endorsement of Greene was a
forgone conclusion, they should
at least have had the courtesy to
meet the woman they were going
to reject.
The News misrepresented the
Stephanopoulos rent control
proposal as being similar to the
one backed years ago by the
"Socialist Human Rights Party."
Tra gfcnih .vnrijn, tn a a
Stephanopoulos' proposal to open
up city boards and commissio
because it went against the goa
of past Democratic Mayors, even
as they praised Mr.Greene for
working for ideas controversial
within his own party. You can't
have it both ways, folks.
In general, the endorsement of
Mr. Greene by the News, when
they could have supported a
qualified and truly dedicated
Stacy Stephanopoulos, and
therefore backed someone wh
would have represented th
Second Ward well, was no more
than an act of callous disregard
for the power the press wields.
When your voice carries so much
weight, yousshould choose your
words wisely, and with
knowledge of what you talk
about. The Ann Arbor News did
neither.
Monday is the primary elec-
I' ~ - ~ 'Y. - ~. ~ .-. ~ - YY~A'Eu I