Marijuana use pervasive
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third of four articles dealing with the wide use of marijuana in the United States, including its primary source, how it reaches the country, its popularity and effects on users.
By JOAN HANAUER UPI Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Marijuana is as easy for Dallas teenagers to acquire as chewing gum—and it is the 13 to 15 year old group that is most interested in trying it.
In Portland, Ore., marijuana parties have replaced beer busts when high school boys are looking for "kicks."
The editor of an Albuquerque, N.M. high school paper estimates 25 per cent of the student body has at least tried marijuana.
A 15-year-old high school coed in Edinburg, Tex. says "more and more kids are getting picked up on narcotics charges."
In New York City, a 16-year-old high school girl summed up the attitude of many teen-agers when she said: "Adults drink booze. We smoke pot."
Other Names
Call it by any other name—and those names include "pot. "grass" and "weed"-the sweet smell of marijuana is pervading colleges, high schools and even
junior highs literally from coast to coast.
Exact figures are difficult to arrive at, since smoking marijuana is an illegal activity. Dr. Joel Fort, in the October, 1968 issue of the magazine "Psychiatric Opinion," says "it is estimated that in the United States 15 to 20 per cent of college students and 20 to 40 per cent of urban high school students use or have used it."
A United Press International nationwide survey revealed there was some marijuana use among teen-agers in almost every community sampled. And even where teen-agers said marijuana smoking was very limited, the young people responding added that it was readily available to those who wanted it.
Dr. Henry Brill, director of Pilgrim State Hospital in West Brentwood, Long Island, part of New York's department of mental hygiene, is an expert on marijuana and a former vice chairman of the state narcotic addiction control commission. He said in an interview:
Mysteries of Life
"Marijuana and drug taking in general is a disorder of youth and of young males. It reaches its peak in the middle or late teens."
He said drugs are a problem
"at the age of puberty and beyond."
"Why this suddenly happens is one of the mysteries of life," he added, "Just as it is a mystery why juvenile delinquency, schizophrenia—even stuttering—suddenly develop at this point, and much more so among boys than girls."
Attitudes of the young people themselves vary.
Teri Allen, 13, of Dallas, says: "No, I'd never take anything like that. It will ruin your mind. You start taking marijuana and soon you will be taking more dangerous drugs. All the boys use it but none of the girls I know do."
Used for kicks
In New Orleans, Neil Campbell, editor of the Tulane University "Hullabaloo," said "a very high percentage for a not-overly-progressive Southern campus" were using marijuana "for kicks."
Christopher Bates, 18, a student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, was one of 14 teen-agers arrested on marijuana charges recently in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield Township, Montgomery County. He classifies adult shock at teen-agers marijuana use as "childish" and says "they don't
Saplings reared in nursery enhance campus landscape
By TERRY KOCCH
Kansan Staff Writer
On the west side of the intersection of 21st and Iowa Streets, there are seven acres of trees held in a kind of "savings account" for the campus.
When old trees die or a new building needs landscaping, Buildings and Grounds crews draw on this account, carrying a tree from the nursery and planting it on the hill, Blitch explained.
The University buys young trees from Kansas nurseries, and raises them at that location until they are ready for use in campus landscaping, said Howard Blitch, grounds and landscaping supervisor.
"Some of the trees in the nursery are 10 to 12 years old, and 20 to 25 feet high," Blitch said.
"We have pin oaks, jack pines, junipers and a couple thousand crabapple trees," Blitch said. "We have half a dozen varieties of the junipers, some of them 15 feet broad."
The crabapple trees are planted in groves or clusters-"for the effect you try to create when they bloom in the spring." Blitch explained.
"When two of the crabapple trees on Irving Hill Drive were destroyed recently by vandals, they were replaced by two
drawn out of the nursery," he said.
"About 50 or 60 pines are brought up on campus and planted around the commencement platform every June," Blitch said. "When the ceremonies are over, the trees are taken back to the nursery."
Blitch said a pharmaceutical firm, the Alza Corp., has recently leased the west four acres of the nursery to build a laboratory.
"The trees in the west half of the nursery must be moved," Blitch said.
The trees will be moved to campus or to the other half of the nursery before construction on the laboratory begins in about two weeks.
Blitch said Building and Grounds personnel will have to move the trees, because construction companies don't have equipment to move trees without destroying them.
He explained the moving procedure: "We use a trenching tool—the kind used for laying wire—to cut a ball of earth and roots below the surface to a depth of about three feet. Then we clean the ditch out with shovels, throw a cable around the ball and lift the whole thing out with a high loader."
Many of the trees will be moved to sites around new
Official Bulletin
know anything about it and they fear the unknown."
International Club Dancing Lesson.
6:30 p.m. 211 Robinson.
Fellainah.
Blitch said a tentative site one-half mile west of 23rd and Iowa Streets has been chosen for another nursery.
Kansas Union
International Club Dancing Lesson
lita. Dyche Auditorium
Dance Club. 7:30 p.m. 173
Hall
"Nazarin." Hoch Auditorium.
"Babylon Gym Show. 8 p.m.
Bobgammon Gym Pool.
KU Moslem Society. Noon. Prayers.
Kansas Union.
Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.
7 p.m. 829 Mass appl.
7 p.m. 829 Mass appl.
Robinson.
University Film Series. 7:30 p.m.
buildings on campus, Blitch explained. Heavier trees will be taken to the eastern section of the nursery.
Lutheran Grad Group 8 p.m. Fath-
mond and Don Redmond
1908, Creggdale Rd.
Popular Film. 7 & 9:30 p.m. "Lo-lita, Dyche Auditeur"
University Film Series. 7:30 p.m.
"Nazarin." Hoch Auditorium.
TOMORROW
Experimental Theatre. 8:20 p.m.
"Destroy Rides Again."
City Clerk and Municipal Finance Officers School. All Day.
Experimental Theatre. 8:20 p.m.
"Destroy Rides Again."
"We hope to plant some young trees there this spring," Blitch said.
Freshman Basketball. 5:45
Highland Jr. College. Allen Field
M.S.
Popular Film. 7 & 9:30 p.m. *Lo-lita*. Dyche Auditorium. Newark, Al.
Basketball 8:05 p.m. Nebraska Alta-
ley Field, House
TODAY
Robinson Gyn. Poor.
Lutheran Grad Group. 8 p.m., Fa-
6 KANSAN Feb. 21 1969
Psychiatrists, police around the country—and some unfortunate shocked and worried parents—have leared to believe.
College Bowl Tournament Elimination Round. 1:45, 1:45, Kangas Union
(Next: The Effects)
very early age -junior high at the latest. You might not believe me, but I've had reliable reports of elementary school kids smoking pot."
SOPH CLASS PARTY TONIGHT
Compliments of Ace Johnson
The youth says he and his friends "feel it is no big thing...and a lot of adults are beginning to look at it that way, too...it is considered status to smoke pot." He added: "I don't see why I would get hooked on stronger drugs unless I had a psychiatric problem. I feel secure. I really think that what I smoke is nobody's business. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm not a burglar."
Tim Sharp, 17, student council president at Miami Beach High School, called drugs "our biggest problem today" and said:
SuF Free University Seminar in CSU Delaware 30-36 Millsville, Guatemala revolutionary. Guatemalan
Carillon Recital. 3 p.m. Albert Gerken.
ken. Mixed Faculty League Bowling. 6
p.m. Jay Bowl
Popular Film. 7 & 8-9 30 p.m. "Lo-
w."
Finals. Jayhawk Karate Tourney.
7:30 p.m. Lawrence Community Build-
Formal Print. 8 & 9 p.m.
litra * Dyche Auditorium.
"I guess a lot of kids think they can't find anything better to do, so they try pot. And a lot of them don't even make a secret of it anymore. They talk about it quite openly. We definitely need more programs in the schools, explaining the dangers of drugs and how one can lead to another and so on. These programs better begin at a
Institution Racism Lecture. 8 p.m.
Florence Kennedy, "Business and Governmental Racism and the Coal-
ition," Oppressed, "Kansas Union Ballroom."
—George Bernard Shaw
"The Improbably Possibility" Sermon, Sunday, Feb. 23 "The Impossible Dream"
LENTEN SERMON SERIES BEGINS THIS SUNDAY
Assoc. Minister Rev. Guy Stone
"You see things as they are: and you ask "Why?" But I dream things that never were: and I ask "Why Not?"
George Bernard Shaw
(''Blessed are those who are persecuted tor righteousness' sake - - ')
Worship Service—10:00 a.m.
Fellowship Coffee—11:00 a.m.
925 Vermont St.
PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Sr. Minister Dr. John Felible