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OPINION
Sunday, May 20, 1984
Page 6
The Michigan Daily
01r Mt-dhtoan'a t
Vol. XCIV, No. 8-S
94 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by Students at
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
The lottery racket
B RAULIA MENESES is on top of the world
today. Her ship came in this week.
A week ago, she was a 33-year-old
Ecuadoran immigrant with four kids, a
husband who worked as an auto mechanic,
and a small apartment in the South Bronx.
Now, thanks to the beneficence of the New
York state lottery, Meneses will receive
$263,000 for each of the next 21 years. She's
planning to buy a house in Queens.
Such tales of new-found wealth are the very
stuff which keeps the state lotteries across the
nation churning out the tickets, raking in the
cash, and replenishing the state coffers. The
financial success of games like the New York
Lotto - the state grossed more than $5 million
- have led the legislature of states as
disparate as Iowa and Michigan to embrace
state-run lotteries as a painless way to raise
needed cash.
But at what cost? Even state officials are
quick to admit that state-run lotteries are par-
ticularly bad bets. By the nature of the game,
the odds are so stacked against the player that
the state makes a killing, often collecting
proportionately more of the "kitty" than the
purveyors of illegal, underground numbers
games.
As a means of filling the state treasury,
state lotteries exploit those who are too
ignorant or too desperate to recognize a bad
bet. Even though everyone who purchases a
lottery ticket does so voluntarily, the state, in
effect, parlays the hope and frustration of the
least fortunate members of society into a
profitably enterprise for which it is not
politically responsible.
The issue is not whether the poor or anyone
else should be able to spend a portion of their
income in a fruitless or foolhardy fashion. The
question is whether the state should encourage
such activity and, indeed, profit from it. It
would be better for all concerned - even
people like the Meneses - to abandon state
lotteries and rely on less deceptive means of
raising revenue.
Unsigned editorials ap-
pearing on the left side
of this page represent a
majority opinion of the
Daily's Editorial Board.
'Casual sex': A misnomer
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By John Critchett
In the 1960s we saw the rise of
the Sexual Revolution which
preached the virtues of
"uninhibited" sex. With equal
fervor came the Women's
Movement in the 1970s. Now in
the 1980s, as we are trying to
reconcile these partly contradic-
tory themes, along comes the
New Right, extolling the virtues
of love and commitment. Do the
ideals of a nation change every
ten years, or is there a logical
thread which remains con-
sistent?
Love and sex have always been
associated with each other.
People date, fall in love, get
married, and have children, This
is an historical and cultural link.
Deeper ones have been
suggested. "Casual" sex has
been described as immoral by the
New Right, and potentially ex-
ploitative by the Women's
Movement. Both are saying that
"true" love and "meaningful"
sex are inextricably linked; that
sex is the ultimate affirmation of
"true" love.
STRICT interpretation of this
doctrine, however, leaves unan-
swered questions about love.
Consider, for example, familial
relationships. It has been said
that affection for family mem-
bers is somehow "different"
from romantic love Anart frnm
the lack of physical intimacy,
how is it different? Are there two
kinds of love depending on
whether or not you share a per-
son's gene pool? Lovers, unlike
relatives, are supposed to be
physically attracted to each
other. But what about couples
who maintain a strictly platonic
relationship, voluntarily, or out
of necessity? Can it be said that
they could not have experienced
"true" love? Is sex a
prerequisite?
It seems illogicalthat "true"
love could occur with or without
physical intimacy, but that
"meaningful" sex could only oc-
cur between lovers. If sex isn't
the ultimate affirmation of
"true" love, what makes it
"meaningful"? Isathere some
kind of synergy which makes sex
"better" between lovers? It
seems unlikely. The physical
gratification is the same. Could
you love a person more during
sex?
Sex between lovers is usually
more relaxed, involving 'more
mutual respect and less guilt.
These factors, however, are not
essential attributes of either love
or sex. It is possible to imagine a
platonic relationship which is not
relaxed or guilt-free. It is even
easier to imagine a purely
physical relationship which is
relaxed, guilt-free, and not
devoid of mutual respect.
THIS LEADS us to conclude
that love and sex are logically in-
dependent. The historical and
cultural links will remain strong,
however, largely through the in-
stitution of marriage. Marriage
vows, logical or not, create a link
between love and sex by mutual
agreement. Once any kind of
promise is made, there is an
ethical reason not to break it,
regardless of its initial ad-
visability.
Marriage as an institution must
certainly have developed from a
mutual desire to nurture any
children through the formidable
stages of development. This is a
noble goal, but, like other factors
mentioned, does not create an
essential link between love and
sex. Many married couples have
no children, and many children
are born into relationships where
love is all but absent.
So what am I trying to say
about "casual" sex? I am saying
that it is a misnomer. Sex is what
it has always been: a nervous
stimulation of the hypothalamus
casual or otherwise. Love, on the
other hand, is what it has always
been: a level of caring so
profound as to cause people to
make mutual sacrifices. There is
a genuine need in a person's life
for both, but let's not confuse the
two.
Critchett is a graduate
student in the School of
Business Administration.
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Calif. 's precarious s insem illa
By John Ross
The spindly stalks of North
Coast sinsemilla, perhaps
California's finest marijuana,
are only knee-high now. Ten of
them, just transplanted from the
greenhouse, stand, six feet apart,
up by the tree line on a mountain-
side in Humboldt County.
They seem so fragile it's hard
to believe they will be worth tens
of thousands of dollars come Oc-
tober, should they survive the on-
slaught of weather, insects-and
government helicopters, which
have joined their natural enemies
for 10 years now.
"I SHOULD be able to get two
pounds from each of these," said
the grower, who has a decade of
harvests behind him. At $2,000 a
pound, each, he is talking a
$40,000 crop.
Largely becasue of its illicit
status, marijuana is considered
California's No. 1 cash crop.
NORML, the National
Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, estimates that
sinsemilla-Spanish for "without
seeds"-is worth $1.6 billion a
year, well ahead of milk and
grapes, the state's leading
legitimate crops.
Despite millions of federal and
state dollars, high-tech sur-
veillance, and military-style
raids, the growers continue to
thrive.
IN ITS FIRST effort last year,
the Campaign Against Marijuana
Planting, involving 27 agencies,
confiscated 110 tons of marijuana
in 14 northern counties, triple any
pervious haul.
This year, with upwards of $1.9
million in federal and state funds,
about $500,000 more than last
year, CAMP will cover 37 coun-
ties, using up to seven helicopters
(they had four last year) and at
least as many as a thousand of-
ficers in the field," says Al King,
media coordinator for the effort.
Some outlaw agronomists
have abandoned the North Coast
entirely for more obscure areas
like Denny, a rough-and-tumble
little gold mining enclave in
Trinity County near national
forest lands.
But last August, 45 CAMP team
members occupied the town for
48 hours, setting up roadblocks,
harassing citizens, and marching
up and down county roads chan-
ting, "War on drugs!" Their tac-
tics brought a earning from a
U.S. district judge-who refused
to halt the program.
This year, CAMP forces also
will attempt to move against
growers with an organic con-
taminant called "Stinko," which
marks plants with red dye and
gives them a rotten egg odor
making them unusable. Al King
of CAMP insists "Stinko" needs
no clearance from state
regulatory agencies, but at least
one group plans to contest its use
in court as a threat to drinking
water.
CAMP'S PLANS have been
threatened by a court decision
which limits random air sear-
ches. Judge Coleman Blease
called routine high and low
altitude air surveillance "an in-
tolerable imposition upon our
liberty and privacy" and "an
unacceptable harbinger of a
totalitarian future."
This decision and two similar
cases have been appealed and
will be heard by the California
Supreme Court in June.
FOR NOW, the two-foot-high
stalks of sinsemilla bend
gracefully in the spring breeze.
The grower ties each to a stake
with tender concern and says,
with a frown, "It's the same
hassle every year, and I think it's
totally counterproductive.
"All the paranoia CAMP
creates serves little purpose ex-
cept to keep the pound price up.
Buyers think it's more dangerous
because of what they read in the
papers, so we can ask more for
the crop. It's almost like having
the government build a price
support system right into the
business."
Ross wrote this article for
Pacific News Service.
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