Tuesday, April 19, 2005 Opinion 4A Sports 11A Daniel Adams recalls his fifth day at school Chris Burke reflects on five years of sports BLOCKBUSTERS AHEAD: SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW ... ARTS, PAGE 8A £erit is;uu One-hundred f~ urteen years of editorialdfreedomn Wrater, TOMORROWM ------------------------------- - -- - - --------------------- -------------------------- ---- - - ---------------- --------------- 0 www.michigandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 122 02005 The Michigan Daily Housing upkeep wornes students By Kim Tomlin Daily Staff Reporter LSA senior Ross Bookman is afraid to stand on his front porch. One night, a large pillar holding the roof over the porch col lapsed, landing on his car parked in the adjacent driveway. The car suffered large dents and had to be taken to the shop for bodywork. After that, "even the mailman said he would not come on the porch because he feared for his safety," said Bookman, add- ing that the inside of the Y , houses in a PART state of disre- pair equiva- lent to the porch. Kinesiol- ogy senior Robert Her- v rera, who also lives in the house, said he was disappointed with the upkeep of the house that includes fall- ing ceiling panels, holes in the stairs and broken bedroom door locks. Similar to Bookman and Herrera, LSA junior Paul Fraumann's house is in violation of the city's housing code. Visitors have to step over doors that have rotted off their hing- es, and they have to avoid insects that enter the house through holes in the ceiling where broken ceiling panels have not been replaced. Duct tape holds the doors closed and prevents air from drafting through the poorly insulated windows. The screens on the windows had gotten so bad that a squirrel managed to enter Fraumann's room, scratched him and woke mm up from a nap. "It was traumatizing," he said. Fraumana's room, located at the very top of the house, also subjects him to outside weather conditions - another violation of the city housing code, which requires that all doors and windows be properly insulated. "Honestly, during the winter it was probably 20 to 30 degrees in my room. I had to type with gloves on," said Frau- mann, expressing frustration with the high heating bills he and his roommates paid this winter. While many students have expressed similar frustrations, what most of them don't often realize is that landlords are required to keep houses in compliance with the city's housing code - which makes ceiling holes, poorly insulated windows and leaky roofs illegal. City. housing inspectors are required to probe the off-campus houses every two and a half years and check to make sure foun- dations, floors, ceilings, walls and roofs are be in good repair and kept insulated from weather and rodents. In addition, stairs and porches must be maintained and "facilities must be capable of heating all habitable rooms, including bathrooms to 68 degrees when the temperature outside is as low as 10 degrees below zero," according to the city's code. Areas commonly neglected by landlords include plumbing, electrical maintenance, See HOUSING, Page 7A MCRI sued over language LANSING (AP) - Another challenge was launched yesterday against an initiative that would ban the use of race and gender preferences in university admissions and government hiring in Michigan. ° A pro-affirmative action group says some voters were tricked into signing a petition they thought would protect affirmative action when the initiative would actually hurt those programs. A complaint was faxed to state election officials yesterday afternoon in an attempt to block a pro- posed constitutional amendment targeting the November 2006 election, opponents said. "People were deceived," said Luke Massie, chairman of Operation King's Dream, a cam- paign affiliated with BAMN. "There is an over- whelming pattern of fraud specifically with black voters, but it extends beyond black voters to white and suburban voters." The group backing the proposal - the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - successful- ly defended the wording of its petition in state courts last year. The next fight could be certify- ing enough of the 508,000 signatures of Michi- gan voters collected in its petition drive. The group must have at least 317,757 valid signatures of Michigan voters to qualify for the ballot. Michigan Civil Rights Initiative executive director Jennifer Gratz said she was confident her group has enough signatures to make the ballot, and that the claims made by BAMN and Opera- tion King's Dream were without merit. "It's just not going to work," Gratz said. "They are grasping at straws. The courts have said our language was clear." See MCRI, Page 3A UCCESS advantage of d,,rugs to stay& BY CARISSA MILLER E DAILY STAFF REPORTER W hen coffee and Red Bull aren't enough to stay awake during those long hours of studying, many students say they are tempted to turn to prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant that enables its users to go without sleep for extended periods of time. However, for some students, the use of Adderall is not limited to the two-week finals period. Instead, these individuals use the drug year-round to manage their workload and study for exams. One such student, an LSA freshman who wished to remain anonymous, said she began using Adder- all in high school after a friend who was prescribed it offered her the drug during a study session. But since entering college, she said her usage has increased, and she considers herself very dependent on the drug. She said she normally takes 20 to 30 milligrams every 12 hours during periods of use. Part of the dependency stems from the overwhelm- ing amount of homework she needs to grapple with during the semester. "Although I didn't really have problems concen- trating, I found it took me a lot longer to study than other people," she said. "Without Adderall, I can't sit down and study for as long as I can when I'm on it." The student added that she now considers her dependency on Adderall to be more psychological than physical. Specifically, she said she feels that if See STUDENTS, Page 5A Use of prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes Drug v s c baser on livng arrangement 15 te1 9 6 3 Resh PHOTO ILLUSTR ATION BY AMY DRUMM/Daily A number of students use "study drugs" to help them stay up late or be more alert while studyingfor finals. StudydrsHow do they work? Co-ed OtherlJ' Ience Hall Housing frtesnty f f Campus By Kingson Man Daily Staff Reporter For the 3 to 7 percent of students diag- nosed with Attention Deficit Hyperac- tivity Disorder, stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall may mean the difference between success and failure in classes. The exact mechanism by which these drugs work, however, is still a puzzle for scientists. And, for students who abuse these prescription medications, the results are often unpredictable. The popular prescription drug dex- troamphetamine, sold under the names Adderall and Dexedrine, is a central ner- vous system stimulant. Its effects on dif- ferent kinds of people, however, can be counterintuitive. Despite being called stimulants, the class of drugs known as amphetamines actually has a calming effect on suffer- ers of ADHD. Children afflicted with the disorder "don't have the capacity to con- centrate, and trail and shift from one task to another," said Maher Karam-Hage, an See DRUGS, Page 3A '4.- 0r p' au 4' U 1' Drug use basedon competitiveness ofuniversity 5 4 3 I Less campet tive 4 Past year use U Past month use 0 Competitive competitive ags are Pitatin, Dexedrine, Adderati I I WATERED-DOWN MILE MSA-approved student fee increases now up to regents By Jeremy Davidson Daily Staff Reporter While the Michigan Student Assembly approved proposing three student fee increases for the fall semester, and is currently making recommendations to University Vice President for Student Affairs Royster Harper, the decision will not be finalized until Harper makes a recommendation to the University Board of Regents. MSA has asked the administration to charge stu- dents an additional $3.50 on their tuition bills for MSA fees. The increase would support expansion of Student Legal Services and an more money for MSA's Budget Priorities Committee. "We had about $600,000 worth of requests from well over 300 groups," Senapati said. The amount of funding BPC provides student groups is on average-about 33 percent of the amount they request. The proposed change would increase this number to 45 percent. "That means more events and activities on campus," Levine said. In a ballot question during the MSA elections in March that asked students if they would be in favor of a one dollar increase in tuition to fund the BPC, 1,326 students, 62 percent of those who voted, agreed with the proposal. Senapati said that in addition to wanting to make campus life more enjoyable, MSA wants to make Ii Illi!i! IS .