DRUG POLICY ON AGENDA OF OU COMMITTEE

Ohio University's Review and Standards Committee plans to reconvene
today to discuss plans for sending proposals to revise the Student
Code of Conduct to Vice President of Student Affairs Michael Sostarich.

After hearing from representatives of Students for a Sensible Drug
Policy, an OU student group that opposes several proposals to toughen
drug policy on campus, the committee was to meet again on Jan. 28 in
order to discuss viewpoints presented by the student group. Because
some committee members couldn't attend the Jan. 28 meeting, it was
rescheduled for today.

"Review and Standards has met once since our meeting with SSDP and had
a very good conversation," said Judy Piercy, director of Judiciaries
and a member of the Review and Standards Committee. "The decision was
for everyone to think about it, and we'd reconvene on Jan. 28 to see
where we were as a group. Unfortunately, that meeting was cancelled
because three members could not attend."

SSDP had hoped to gain a voting seat on the Review and Standards
Committee, but voting on whether to send the drug proposals to the
administration could come sooner than most had thought. Previously,
Richard Carpinelli, assistant vice president for student affairs and
chair of the Review and Standards Committee, had voiced his hope to
send the proposals to Sostarich by fall 2002.

However, in a recent e-mail message, he indicated an accelerated
timetable. "It is our plan to have a report of our review of the code
of conduct to Vice President Sostarich in March," Carpinelli said.

He added that the meeting today would include a continuation of the
ongoing review of the Code of Conduct.

The main proposal for amending the code that's drawn fire from SSDP
and other students would change the penalty for possession of small
amounts of marijuana from a maximum of disciplinary probation to
potential explusion.