STUDENTS CONDEMN DRUG BUST

To the Cigar,

A great person and dear friend of many was arrested with many others
in a recent drug bust on campus. This person was not a drug dealer.
He was not a threat to society. Despite this, he was taken from his
room at three o'clock in the morning by the police, who had a warrant
for his arrest.

In the bust, our friend was taken down and seven other students were
arrested for selling drugs to undercover police officers. Although
several counts of dealing crack, hallucinogenic mushrooms, ketamine,
cocaine and marijuana were among the charges against the students,
our friend was accused of "one count of delivering marijuana."

This student allegedly delivered a small amount of marijuana to an
undercover, young-looking female officer. This could be as innocent
as handing someone a joint at a party. In which case, being woken at
three in the morning to go spend the week in prison is certainly not
warranted. It is not proven that he dealt marijuana to her on campus,
he is being charged with the delivery of it, and yet his face still
appeared on countless news broadcasts.

This undercover officer could have been "on or off campus," according
to the police report. These police, who believed they were enforcing
the law for the best interests of the rest of the college community,
took him to the police station. His experience continued with an
arraignment followed by detention without bail at the intake center
for Rhode Island felons. He was, and still is, incarcerated with
rapists and murderers.

The administration wants to deliver a message. They want to show the
rest of the world that the University of Rhode Island is not about
drugs and alcohol but it is about success. If this is the case, then
why has the biggest news story about URI in recent memory been for a
drug bust? A URI football game has not been highlighted in recent
newspapers or news reports. A URI basketball game has not recently
achieved the same fame as the recent drug bust. Is this the kind of
publicity URI wants? URI spends so much time worrying about the
problems that they take the focus away from URI's many successes.

URI wants to expand and recruit thousands of new students every year.
Who would want to go to a school famous for drug busts, arrests and
prosecutions rather than one that focuses on academic or
extracurricular triumphs?

URI encourages student interaction. As a freshman, I went through
orientation with a diversity seminar and cultural experiences.
Everything was done to make me trust my brothers and sisters on
campus, to become one with my community and trust everyone as a
person, a group and as a whole. Then we find that one of our
"sisters" is not another lost freshmen looking to fit in, but is
instead playing a part, only here to put one of my brothers in
prison. How can that not poison the atmosphere of trust and community
of an entire class?

The police probably feel they are here to help us. That would be the
case if they stood on the street corners in uniform. If a cop can
pose as a student while undercover, party and associate with us only
to bring down those who might make a mistake, than no one can be
trusted. Most of the students I have met have participated in
underage drinking or have smoked marijuana at a party at one time or
another. What if one of us had run into one of these undercovers? If
an attractive girl had asked me, as a favor, to help her find
something and I had helped her in a moment of weakness, would I be in
prison instead of my friend?

Undercover cops existing on campus do not make me feel safe, nor
those I have spoken to; it makes us all feel as though we cannot
trust anyone, we are unsafe and vulnerable. Is that really how
administration wants their students to feel?

Ten weeks of investigations, two police forces who claim to be our
friends, undercover police who play a role like Hollywood actors to
be our friends. What does it all give back to the community? A $400 drug bust?

If 10 weeks of destroying the trust of an entire student body, the
morale of everyone effected, and making future students turn away
from a college that treats their students likes inmates is worth
making a low-level drug bust, then I am wrong. But if I am right,
then what are we punishing these students for? Punishing the police
department for wasting 10 weeks of our tax dollars to support such a
low-rated drug bust would be more appropriate.

What does it cost to pay the salaries and overtime for all the
officers involved for 10 weeks? Tens of thousands of dollars at the very least.

Four hundred dollars of drugs were seized. No drug lords were busted.
How could a "big timer" or "top dawg" be involved if eight people
were arrested for supposedly possessing a total of $400 worth of
drugs? They can't. It simply exaggerates a small, unimportant event
into something that will instill fear into all that are aware of it,
and maybe that's the point.

If a serious offense exists, let the law be enforced upon those for
which it is justified. If it is to send a message, prove a point or
instill fear, it will not work; it will simply take the students
emotions, throw them in a blender and create a dark, hate-filled
energy that far exceeds what originally existed as a peace-filled,
wholesome energy.

For those students who feel safer with undercover officers on campus,
please consider the following quote from one of our most famous forefathers.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little
security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin.

Ray Fleser, AJ Milano