STUDENT GROUP RESPONDS TO BUSTS WITH ANTI-DRUG ABUSE CAMPAIGN

After on-campus drug busts, a group of students hope to raise at least
$11,000 -- a number they chose because police say they bought this
amount worth of drugs from the five students they arrested.

Four students have started a project dubbed "Operation Ivy League:
The Legit Deal," an effort to reduce substance abuse at Columbia in
light of the recent drug arrests.

The students -- Wilmer Cerda, SEAS '11, Carmen Marin, SEAS '11,
Elizabeth Pino, CC '11, and Slav Sobkov, SEAS '12 -- are selling
T-shirts for $15 each, and they plan to use the proceeds to start an
anti-drug abuse campaign next semester. They said that they are not
yet sure how exactly they will do that, but that they are
brainstorming and have been in contact with a few outside
organizations.

"The problem of substance abuse has been around for a long time, and
it's been on everybody's mind," Sobkov said. "We came together because
we share a passion for reducing substance abuse on campus as well as
in the community around us."

Their goal is to raise at least $11,000 -- a number they chose because
police say they bought this amount worth of drugs from the five
students they arrested.

The "Legit Deal" founders have been advertising through a Facebook
event, fliers, and in person around campus. They said they had sold
about 20 T-shirts through Sunday afternoon and had received numerous
other inquiries, including some from alumni.

The students said their effort to reduce drug use is "an alternative"
to the arrests carried out as part of the other Operation Ivy League.
However, the group did not say that they were against the police's
methods.

"Whether you're for the drug arrests, whether you're against them,
whether you're pro-NYPD or whether you're against NYPD, we can all
agree that there's an issue of substance abuse that needs to be
addressed," Pino said.

Meanwhile, Columbia's Students for Sensible Drug Policy organization
met Sunday afternoon for the final session of the semester to discuss
the challenges of drug policy in light of last week's busts.

"Now that they [the arrested students] are not there ... people are
just going to replace them," Roxanne Moadel-Attie, BC '12, said,
arguing that these kinds of raids do not address the larger problems
of drug abuse.

Katharine Celentano, GS and director of media relations for the group,
said that next semester, SSDP plans to host more events centered on
drug policy.

"I would love to see us continue to find ways ... to reduce substance
abuse and the harms associated with substance abuse," she said.