One Hundred and TwenTy Five years OF ediTOrial FreedOm
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Ann Arbor, MI

Weekly Summer Edition
MichiganDaily.com

INDEX

NEWS ...................................
OPINION .............................. 
ARTS .....................................
CLASSIFIEDS.........................
SUDOKU................................
SPORTS................................

SPORTS
Glasgow ready to 
return to gridiron
He will be crucial to 

Michigan’s defensive line

>> SEE PAGE 10

NEWS
Gender and minority 
gap in Engineering
Students and faculty call 

for more diversity 

>> SEE PAGE 2

OPINION
Marijuana 
legalization
Executive action has 
immediate potential to 
save billions of dollars 

>> SEE PAGE 4

ARTS

‘Black’ is back

Streaming drama’s latest 

season tackles complex 

themes and ideas in show’s 

best run yet

>> SEE PAGE 6

SPORTS
Harbaugh hosts A4 
quarterback camp

The camp emphasized 

athletic versatility for QB’s

>> SEE PAGE 12

inside

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Vol. CXXVI, No. 121| © 2016 The Michigan Daily 
michigandaily.com

Opiate overdoses spike 
in Washtenaw County

Increasing 
tuition: a 
look at why 
costs rise

DPSS, county 
sheriff’s office 

respond to increased 

hard drug use

By JACKIE CHARNIGA

Daily News Editor

At the end of June, every 

University of Michigan police 
officer will carry Naloxone, a 
generic version of the name-brand 
drug Narcan that reverses the 
effects of an overdose by blocking 
opiate receptors in the brain. This 
new training and policy comes two 
years after the Washtenaw County 
Sheriff’s Office began combating 
peaking opioid overdose numbers 
in the area. The University of 
Michigan Police Department is 
currently working on adding this 
additional officer training in the 
face of an increasing number of 
young people overdosing. 

Marlene 
Radzik, 
the 

Washtenaw County Sheriff Office’s 
police services commander, said 
among the products acquired by 
the department between 1998 and 
2000, powder and crack cocaine 
were the most common. Now, 
heroin is the drug of choice for 
young people between the ages of 
15 to 30.

A growing epidemic

It has been 12 years since 

31-year-old 
Ashton 
Marr, 
an 

Ann Arbor resident, was first 
prescribed 
Vicodin 
for 
an 

emergency appendectomy.

“I was able to maintain the 

image that I was doing okay, but 
my addiction hit a new low,” Marr 
said. “It was like it just took over 
my life and my mind.”

She has long since healed from 

her 2004 surgery, but the effects 
of Marr’s introduction to opioids 
left her with a frustrating, painful 
addiction. After starting the drug, 
continued use was all too easy. 
Marr said that even though she 
began to experiment with drugs as 
a student at Pioneer High School, 

she began to spiral out of control 
when she began studying at 
Washtenaw Community College.

“It was actually easier for me to 

get illegal drugs than it was for me 
to get alcohol,” Marr said. “People 
get started taking old prescriptions 
that they find in the medicine 
cabinet.”

Radzik is also well-versed in 

the heroin epidemic in Washtenaw 
County — she has been on staff 
with Washtenaw County Sheriff’s 
Office for 27 years and worked as 
an undercover cop from 1998 to 
2000. When starting road patrol in 
1991, she said, it was extremely rare 
to respond to a heroin overdose.

“If we did, it was normally — I’m 

not saying this is a positive thing 
— it was usually a long-term, older 
user that had other health issues,” 
Radzik said.

According 
to 
Washtenaw 

County 
Public 
Health, 
more 

than 400 residents overdosed on 
opioids between 2011 and 2015. 
Younger white males were more 

Hike in revenue 
outpaces other 

public universities

By LYDIA MURRAY

Summer Managing News Editor

Last Thursday, the University of 

Michigan Board of Regents voted 
to increase tuition by 3.9 percent for 
in-state students and 4.4 percent for 
out-of-state students. This change 
will result in an increase in tuition 
revenue of $86.35 million.

Since 2002, tuition revenue has 

increased by over $800 million — a 
135 percent increase — far outpacing 
similar institutions such as Ohio 
State University and the University 
of California system, both of which 
have seen approximately 52 percent 
increases. Both universities also face 
similar state funding decreases to 
those within the state of Michigan. 
This comparison raises the question: 
Where is this money coming from 
and where it is going?

State Funding

The 
increase 
in 
projected 

tuition revenue coincides with a 
proposed increase in state funding 
of 4.2 percent for the University. 
This state-funding proposal is the 
latest in a series of small increases 
following a 21.6 percent funding 
cut the University experienced in 
2011 under Gov. Rick Snyder’s first 
budget, which featured an across-
the-board 15 percent cut in funding 
for higher education.

The latest increase in state 

funding brings aggregate funding for 
Michigan’s higher education budget 
back to pre-2011 levels; however, the 
University’s individual state funding 
still remains 7.8 percent lower than 
2011 levels.

Various regents at Thursday’s 

meeting cited state disinvestment as 

ADMINISTRATION

See OPIATE, Page 3
See TUITION, Page 9

