Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, September 5, 1980
Search group dreaming
The search committee for a new chancellor at the University of Kansas is looking for that just-right candidate. And judging by the committee's criteria, applicants need not be miracle workers—just as long as they are perfect.
In truth, a favorable candidate will have to please a lot of different groups in lot of different ways.
On the one hand, an ideal chancellor must possess a flair for working with the Kansas Legislature, which allocates megabucks to the University. On the other hand, a chancellor must keep in touch with the needs of the students and faculty.
AT THE SAME TIME, a chancellor will be faced with the management of a budget that runs into the millions. And certainly not to be forgotten is the upkeep of the University's public image.
A chancellor will have to maintain the University's public image, not only to appease the Legislature, but also to satisfy KU alumni—another major source of revenue.
A chancellor's commitments to the Legislature, to the students, to the alumni and to the faculty can easily conflict at times. In these situations, he must sometimes choose between the needs of students and faculty and the wishes of the Legislature or alumni.
THE PREVIOUS two chancellors have illustrated two extremes in the office. E. Laurence Chalmers, who served from 1969 to 1972, had amazing rapport with KU students. Rarely has a chancellor been so popular with students.
Unfortunately, the Legislature, not to mention some KU alumni, viewed Chalmers as a wild-eyed radical who would be better off supervising a bonfire than running the University.
Archie R. Dykes, who resigned Aug. 15 to take a job with a Topeka insurance company, was just the opposite. Dykes mastered the handling of the Legislature and won millions of dollars for programs and improvement projects at KU.
Dykes was called to better the University's public image and to win more legislative appropriations. He did his job. But now, considering that the public image could not be better, the University needs someone with a stronger commitment to the students and to the University's academic programs. it needs someone who can communicate effectively with the students and the faculty on a regular basis.
BUT DYKES RARELY reached out to the students. He usually addressed them twice a year—at the opening Convocation and at Commencement—and then performed a disappearing act. But Dykes left KU in its best financial shape ever.
BASED ON COMMENTS from the search committee's members, the ideal chancellor would be a public relations man interested in student and faculty affairs.
But the committee's hopes to hire a person who can "walk on water" may be no more than wishful thinking. The chancellor's duties to the Legislature and to the University community make the job a paradox. The committee cannot have the best of both worlds.
Foes of pot decriminalization run from reality of wide use
These folks in City Hall, bless their hearts,
they mean well, think they can save Dorothy
and Toto from the "wicked weed" by zapping
away the Ziz Zags.
Sorry guys, but how could a law prohibiting the sale of "drug paraphernalis" to minors stop marijuana use any more than do the old-age laws prohibiting possession, possessing, selling or holding the stuff?"
With nearly 20 million pot smokers in America, the issue, it seems, is no longer how to stop marijuana use, but how to regulate it. According to a study conducted by the state policies and penalties for marijuana, the number of adult users in the nation has increased "steadily" since 1971 and "shows no sign of
AMY HOLLOWELL
decrease." The study added that "no large increase in use has been shown in states that regulate capitalization law."
So what are legislators from Lawrence to Washington continuing to do? They fuitily continue to wage an expensive and hopeless war against marijuana use. The federal government alone spends nearly $100 million a year to fund the legislation, but millions spent "enforcing" the laws. And beginning in 1975, the United States invested $40 million to contaminate the Mexican marijuana crop with the herbicide Paraquat. (Inhaling 2-Paraquat-contaminated joints daily for two months can cause fibrosis of the lungs, an increase in respiratory function reduces the lungs' capacity to absorb oxygen.)
But possession of even small amounts of marijuana is still a crime in 39 states, including Kansas. A first-offender in Kansas faces a possible year in prison and a $2,500 fee, regardless of the amount in his possession. In contrast, a second-offender in Minnesota, one of
Decriminalizing marijuana, then, could save us all bundles of money. In California, for example, where pot possession was decriminalized in 1976, $25 million in court costs was saved in the first year alone. Under the California law, possession of one ounce or less is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum fine of $100.
the first states to decriminalize marjuana, faces up to 90 days in jail and a possible $50 fine, if he possesses one and a half ounces or less
The blackest marks against marjuanja reform, according to opponents of decriminalization, are health hazards and young users. True, marjuanja use by younger and younger people is more likely now occur between the ages of 14-18, according to a 1979 University of Michigan study.
Norman Zinberg, a Harvard University professor, recently found that the number of marijuana users ages 12-17 has jumped 25 percent since 1976 and suggested that decriminalization would be necessary. Last summer Zinberg told the House Select Committee on Narotics Abuse and Control that by giving "formal social control" to marijuana, the "age of first use" could be controlled. He said the "age of first use" would tend to rise, clustering around the newly established legal age. Notice that Zinberg's research is based on protective regulation, not prohibition.
More people than ever before are smoking marijuana. Two out of three Americans ages 18-25 have tried pot, and 32 percent use it regularly. A Department of Health, Education and Welfare survey of the high school graduating class of 1977 found that nearly 80 percent had used marijuana as a substitute for alcohol or that class of '77 is the graduating class of '81 in colleges and universities across the country.
Marijuana's "harmful effects" are another block to reform. But what exactly are these effects? As most scientists agree, marijuana research is such a young field that long-term effects really can't be charted. However, researchers generally agree that pregnant women and growing children are more sensitive to the growth. There are findings that indicate harm to the lungs, brain, and reproductive system, and there are equally as many findings to the contrary.
The scientific community is split on the harm marijuana may cause, but many researchers agree with their UCLA colleague, Sidney Cohen, who told the House committee that "the in-adult use of marijuana—less than once a week—will probably not result in ill effects." . .
So why not decriminalization? It could save time and money in the courts and it could cut youth usage. But Kansas, it seems, is worried about Dorothy and Toto and would rather take away the Zig Zags than bring reality to the Land of Oz.
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Chuck Chowins
Dan Harkness, director of consultation and education at the Bert Nash Mental Health Center in Douglas County, said responsibility for providing resisted solely on the shoulders of the ex-patient.
System neglects mental patients' needs
I may have saved a woman from drowning on Tennessee Street one night last week. But she and others could be drowning now because they are alone. They are afraid of their and their loneliness—or are afraid to go for help.
There's no water on Tennessee, of course. But the woman, a former mental patient, was drowning just the same. She was being washed away in society's undertow and just happened to bob to eight behind in the glare of her headlights. They might have been someone else's headlights had might have been fatal.
As a friend and I drove down Tennessee on a return trip from a late-night Joe's run, we saw someone wandering in the middle of the street with a dog. We walked away, a way around her and left her to face still others.
but then formulate, thus, rehearsal.
The system failed this woman. In Kansas, and auditioned she was now made only after a court determines a person to be dangerous to himself or others, and patients are released only when they are determined to be no longer dangerous. When a person is released, he is referred to agencies in his county of residence that can help in his reintegration. Referral is as far as the state can go, and that's where the cracks are created.
Shocked by the sight of someone risking her life like that, we drove back around the block to see whether we could help. I parked the car. In my rush I blocked a fraternity's driveway. But nothing seemed, or was, as important as getting her off the street.
"Is there anything we can do for you?"
No, she said. She was okay, just "directing
the light on the small, yellow flashlight she
clutched in her hand."
My friend ran to call the police for help, and I followed the woman at a distance. I grabbed her when she headed into the street again. We walked for blocks. With my arm tightly around her shoulder, and my mouth parched from the situation's enormity, I tried to keep her talking about who she was and why she was trying to kill herself.
Although she had tried unsuccessfully to get a job more than once, she said. I was the first person with whom she had had an everyday conversation since she had come to Lawrence. Her parents, she said, had told her they were "through with her." Her monthly government support check, possibly Social Security disability or some form of welfare, was not enough to live
What she told me revealed a person who had fallen between the cracks of the many Douglas County agencies and groups that try to help former mental patients find their way from the quiet, often medicated world of a mental hospital where they rent, buying groceries and carrying out a life.
She was 22 but not a KU student, she said. She has been in Lafayette since she got out of college two years ago.
But she found no one; thus, Tennessee Street.
Again and again, she told me she was "tired of being disturbed," and told me she just did not want to go home again, where only loneliness and the books she already had read awaited her.
She described a life like a huge empty room where no exit signs pointed a way out.
She sobbed. "I just need someone to talk to and someone to help me when I'm broke."
He estimated that 30 ex-patients a year in Douglas County fall into the category of the woman on Tennessee Street—people who out of fear, or frustration with the bureaucracy involved, don't manage to link up with those who can help them.
If she had known, a good alternative for the woman on Tennessee Street would have been Headquarters, a crisis counseling center at 1602 Massachusetts St.
At Headquarters, people who can help in a crisis are available by phone or in person 24/7.
SCOTT FAUST
problems are only one of a wide range of problems they are able to dean with.
I called Headquarters about my experience, and they said that in a case such as the woman's, they would talk to her, try to find out specifically what information she really refer her to a local agency that could help her.
Besides the Bert Nash Mental Health Center, autonomous group counseling organizations such as Project Acceptance and Breakthrough, are providing trust to society through mutual support groups.
But all the government dollars and volunteer time that go into these places had not helped the woman before she took her walk. She had not of course been in front of the first referral, no one had come to her.
An answer, then, is to take the help more directly to those who need it. By law, the state cannot force ex-patients to cooperate with the patient without first giving course, the patient's right to reject outside help.
Nevertheless, programs could be established by the state that allow the various groups to meet with patients in the hospital environment before they are released. There, they could carefully explain how they could help them and how they have helped others.
Also, the state could pass legislation allowing the groups to seek out the ex-patients after they are released. Now, the groups' role is strictly passive, because patient privacy laws prohibit the state from giving released patients' names to the groups.
But these are not people who have had surgery and must be protected from hordes of solicitors trying to sell rehabilitative aids. They are people who are undergoing a difficult adjustment process not all that different than being freed from prison.
Now, there are no transitional living facilities or day treatment programs for ex-patients in Douglas County. These should be established. Funds must be allocated for them.
Every possible effort must be made to get the help to those who need it.
The undertow is relentless.
Letters to the Editor Smock slanders KU women
To the editor:
I am incensed to be accused by George "Jed" Smock, evangelist-in-residence, of raping the minds of the women students in my classes, but we understand that to be "a manner of speaking." Such nonsensical statements, while in questionable taste, are protected by the free press because they are not intended for student (or any woman) a whore to her face is not "a manner of speaking" but slander and is not protected by any amendment. It is grounds for legal action. I hope the women so slandered will take such action. I see little difference between calling a woman who dresses comfortably and neither a whore and chopping off the head of a sister because she flirted with another man.
J. P. Davidson
professor of physics and astronomy
Free speech protest sees trees, not forest
To the editor:
Although I admire the energy and ingenuity recently displayed by that group that has been advocating First Amendment rights at the University of Kansas at important University events, I wish they would rechannel all that spunk into a productive direction. If anything, the direction they are now going is a destructive one. Focusing too much attention on trivial rights violations just because they are close by and easy to publicize, while ignoring, for
example, Soviet and Soviet-backed rights violations coupled with Soviet expansionism, is like agonizing over a scratch on your neck even as the guillotte line races down upon it.
With all their energy and ingenuity, not to mention backbone, surely the First Amendment rights advocates can help us avoid the real pain in the neck instead of being one themselves.
Eric Brende
Topeka sophomore
Commencement no time for political banners
To the editor:
I, too, Iplease exhibition of political banners at commencement. Graduation exercises recognize an academic milestone, honoring no race, the sentiment and social faction alive any other.
No one gets away with selling popcorn at a wedding would would life insurance commercial fixtures.
Demonstrators with mature minds recognize legitimate opportunities for display, Lectures, lawn spectacles and just what I'm doing right now are typical.
Yes, I am able to imagine an organized protest at a tangle or symphonic concert; all, selected by the committee.
If a banner must hang high at next spring's commencement, "GO GET EET. EM.CHISQ 0811."
Tra Bond, electrician Facilities Operations