HALF-BAKED AT HARVARD

While The Rules Seem Tough On Paper, Harvard May Actually Be - Or At
Least Has Been - A Toker's Paradise

The newcomer walked in to the party and took his place among the
throng of unsuspecting first-years. After asking the hosts to turn
down the music, he then said that he'd need their alcohol. An
awkward way to ask for a drink, perhaps.

The party's host, Mark, a current sophomore who asked FM to keep his
name private because he does not want to be associated with the
event, didn't think much of the odd visitor at first. Reaching into
his desk, Mark says he then took out a bag of marijuana. That was
enough for the visitor, who then asked Mark to cut the music. This
mysterious partygoer was shutting this party down. He was a freshman proctor.

Mark feared strict disciplinary action. He soon found himself in
front of then- Assistant Dean of Freshman Wendy E.F. Torrance and
awaited his punishment: writing a letter explaining that he
understood Harvard's policy on illegal drugs. Torrance then allegedly
told him not to do it again.

A November 14, 2005 Crimson article entitled "Harvard Rarely
Punishes Student Drug Use" described a lenient atmosphere towards
drug enforcement at Harvard that mirrored Mark's encounter with the
administration. The article argues that students are unlikely to face
the administrative board for simply smoking marijuana or drinking
underage. But according to Assistant Dean of Harvard College and
Administrative Board Secretary John "Jay" L. Ellison, Harvard's
policy "is much more strict than the article implies."

Two months after that article was published, it was revealed that
the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) spent three weeks
tracking a group of students in DeWolfe, who were subsequently
arrested for the alleged possession of marijuana with intent to
distribute. And while the three charged students now have to deal
with the courts, they will also have to deal with an administration
that, in recent history, has had a less punitive response to
allegations of drug use.

Good Trips & Bad Vibes

Harvard Square was a hotbed for drug dealers and experimenters in
the 1960s, and according to a March 1965 Crimson story,
then-Middlesex Superior Court Justice Frank W. Tomasello alleged
that institutions like Harvard were to blame. "Tax-free
institutions," he said during the 1965 sentencing of an accused
19 year-old drug dealer, "should screen out those they let in."

Dana L. Farnsworth, then-director of University Health Services,
reacted in The Crimson. "Perhaps a few more people than usual are
experimenting with drugs."

The University responded to criticism by sending drug users to
psychiatrists or putting them on probation. But then-Dean of the
College John U. Monro '34 struck a harder line. "In sum," The
Crimson reported he wrote in a letter to the freshman class, "if a
student is stupid enough to misuse his time here fooling around with
illegal and dangerous drugs, our view is that he should
leave college and make room for people prepared to take good
advantage of the college opportunity."

The College's hard line, however, did not seem to impede the
experimentally-ambitious.

"The mid 60s were a time of great tumult in the United States," says
James F. Calvert '67. "Drug use was an important part of the general
atmosphere of rebellion."

Calvert, then a senior at the College, believed that The Crimson was
giving drug users a bad rap.

He responded by writing an open letter to the freshman class
endorsing the use of LSD. He faced no discipline from the College.

The 1960s, though, were not necessarily an exceptional time. Wade
Davis '75 claims that the 70s were just as raucous. "Marijuana was
simply the backdrop of the era," he says. Davis doesn't remember any
drug busts or police conspiracies to break up campus happenings, and
he believes that enforcement was "pretty laissez-faire."

"The University basically turned a blind eye to it," says Davis.

Beginning in 1967, freshman proctors were instructed to remind their
charges about the punitive consequences of drug and alcohol use, but
Victoria W. Wulsin '75 does not remember being warned. "But maybe
that's just because I wasn't listening," she says.

Although obviously popular among students, the University's
laissez-faire attitude towards drugs eventually got the school into
hot water. In 1986, then- Secretary of Education William J. Bennett
called Harvard's lack of anti-drug action "unconscionable."

"What Harvard fails to do," he said, "others will fail to do."

Taking Their Chances

In a more recent incident, two Currier House residents pled guilty to
the possesion of an assortment of drugs in 1996 after what HUPD told
The Crimson in April 1996 was a six-to-eight week investigation. The
students pled guilty to possesion in a school zone, and the College
did not allow them to walk with their class during commencement. In
the end, hough, the duo did graduate.

These days, Ryan M. Travia, director of Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Services at Harvard, tells FM that the College has no interest in
"sniffing" underneath students' doors. He does say, though, that the
University is ready to respond. "When a situation comes to the
attention of a College officer, the expectation is that it will be
addressed," he says.

The College has decided, according to Travia, to remain as fair as
possible in light of the law, and Ellison agrees.

"I believe that our enforcement policies have always had to follow
those of the Commonwealth and Federal statutes," Ellison writes in
an email. "We might have changed in response to changes in the law,
and it is possible that individual attitudes have changed, but I
don't think enforcement has changed independently."

Though HUPD's stake-out means the alledged DeWolfe tokers may end up
with a police record, if precedent proves anything, they'll be
walking with their class.