Bring on the Bears
This weekend the Kansas softball team takes on Baylor. The series begins a five-game home stay for the Jayhawks.
FRIDAY, MARCH 30,2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM VOL.117 ISSUE 123
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
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PAGE 1A
candidates
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Learn more about the intricacies of Lawrence politics. They go beyond just Democrat or Republican. 4A
PROGRESSIVE
rowing
The Kansas rowing team continues to build steam. Saturday they play host to a regatta starting at 2 p.m. 10A
Last year, KU eliminated MU in the Big 12 Conference tournament. The Tigers seek revenge tonight in Columbia.
baseball
12A
geocaching
Don't know what to do with your funky new GPS phone? Try a new style of digital treasure hunting.
3A
weather
TODAY 77 57
t-storms
weather.com
ATOMNATHY
66 47
Scattered t-storms
SUNDAY
74 56
Sunny
Classifieds...6A
Crossword...11A
Horoscopes...11A
Opinion...5A
Sports...12A
Sudoku...11A
index
All contents, unless stated otherwise.
© 2007The University Daily Kansan
》 HEALTH
BY DANAE DESHAZER
Birth control prices take a hike
Birth control prices are drastically increasing at student health centers nationwide because pharmaceutical manufacturers ended their contracts with centers and are no longer offering affordable "clinic packs" for students.
The birth control medications this affects at Watkins are Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, NuRing, Desogen and Cycleasa. Their prices increased
from approximately $8 to $40.
Companies contacted Watkins in December, and said their contracts would cease Dec. 15. But, students weren't affected until recently because Watkins still had enough low-priced clinic packs to distribute.
Cathy Thrasher, head pharmacist at Watkins, said there were still clinic packs available for Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo and Cyclessa, which students could purchase at the lower price. However, once Watkins pharmacy runs out, all students must purchase the product at wholesale. Thrasher predicted the amount they had left would last for the rest of the semester.
The contract cut resulted from
Thrasher said another problem is that two of the birth controls, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo and NuvaRing, were unique. Most medicines have
the 2005 Deficit-Reduction Act, which benefited Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor.
Thrasher said before the change, pharmaceutical manufacturers offered preferred pricing to student health centers. She said that because of the Medicaid plan the companies were instructed to figure average price of the product. The price they gave to student health centers skewed the average price.
SEE BIRTH CONTROL ON PAGE 4A
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BRACKET BASH
Pools suffer after KU loss
BY KYLE CARTER
Brackets are falling apart for students on campus now that Kansas is out of the tournament. Although bracket pools are illegal, many students place bets with friends on their picks for the NCAA tournament.
Photo illustration by Sarah Leonard
Luke Hanson, Eden Prairie,
Minn, freshman, bet $10 with a group of friends from high school on a bracket and picked Kansas to win. He said his friends from home did not share his bias for the Jayhawks and that he had already incorrectly picked too many games
to have a chance at winning.
Hanson said he followed college basketball but did not use logic for all of his picks.
Not all students stayed loyal to the Jayhawks when filling out their brackets. Dustin Smith, Austin, Texas, senior, picked Memphis to win the tournament. He and his roommates each put $5 into a bracket pool. Smith said he had already lost because he picked too many upsets.
sions of gambling on the tournament.
Neither Smith nor Hanson worried about potential legal repercussions
"Some are just gut picks," he said.
"Catch me if you can." Smith said.
"I bet the cops have office pools too," Hanson said.
Kansan staff writer Kyle Carter can be contacted at kcarter@ kansan.com.
Even in Las Vegas, where gambling is legal, there aren't any bracket pools to gamble on legally, said Jill Hersch, supervisor at the New York, New York sports book on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Kim Murphree, Lawrence Ponce Department spokesperson, said she wasn't aware of anyone being fined or prosecuted for gambling on bracket pools.
Hersch said the most common bets placed on college basketball were point-spread bets, over-under bets and standard bets. A point spread is how much a team is predicted to win by, over under-bets predict the total number of points the two teams will score and standard bets simply predict who will win the game.
- Edited by Kelly Lanigan
GAMBLING
Casinos in Kansas' future
BY JOE HUNT
Senate passes Expanded Lottery Act
Gambling will become more prevalent in Kansas. Thursday the Senate passed the Kansas Expanded Lottery Act, which will allow for construction of four state-owned casinos and installation of 2,200 slot machines at race tracks. Governor Kathleen Sebelius confirmed in a press release Thursday that she would sign the bill.
Expanded gambling has long been a topic of discussion in Kansas, Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) said that two previous gambling bills had been brought to the Senate during her three years, but both failed. She supported the
Illustration by Grant Snider
Francisco said this bill was different from others because it limited the amount of casinos to four, reduced the number of slots at racetracks and allocated 2 percent of funds toward social rehabilitation services. The four casinos would be destination casinos, which means they would offer activities other than just gambling.
Kansas Expanded Lottery Act.
The bill does not specifically allocate casino revenues toward deferred maintenance at Kansas universities, but Francisco said she hoped that was where some money would go. The bill states that
SEE CASINOS ON PAGE 4A
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》 CITY ELECTIONS
Surveys target voters
Candidates pay for phone polls
BY TYLER HARBERT
The phone number on the Caller ID is 1 (000) 000-0000.
The caller asks if you will take a quick survey about the Lawrence City Commission election that takes place Tuesday and how you feel about hot button Lawrence issues; property taxes, jobs and infrastructure. The survey names the six commission candidates.
Some of those candidates are upset about these surveys. They say the surveyors are using a technique called push polling, which is similar to suggestive selling in that the surveyors might recommend certain candidates during the survey, rather than asking objective questions.
"I think it's an attempt by somebody to influence the election," said David Schauer, city commission candidate.
Candidates Mike Dever and Rob Chestnut both employ the same phone service company, Pinnacle Telemarketing Incorporated in Plainview, Neb., to conduct the surveys. Pinnacle would not return phone calls.
According to campaign expenditure sheets, Chestnut spent $2,714.25 and Dever spent $951.75 on the outbound calling service. The service is not listed in the expenditure sheets of the other four candidates, Schauer, James Bush, Carey Maynard-Moody and Dennis "Boog" Highberger. All of those candidates said they did not use the service.
Chestnut said the survey company had been calling about 500 Lawrence residents a day for the last couple of weeks.
He said the company had sent him two or three Microsoft Excel spreadsheets with the statistical results of the surveys within the last week, but he said the results had not affected his campaign.
"They try to establish the folks they think are likely voters and have opinions about the community;" Chestnut said. "I'm not familiar with how it happens."
"For me, it's really confirmed what we thought the issues were out there," Chestnut said. "It has provided a pretty clear message."
Dever said the service he purchased did not survey callers, but it did ask callers if they were going to vote for Dever. If not, it asks the callers their reasons.
"We're really interested in driving up voter turnout," Dever said.
Burdett Loomis, KU political science professor, said motivating voter turnout this late in the election process was "the most bang for your buck." But he also said survey results were most effective at the beginning of campaigs.
"I don't quite understand what they're polling for a few days out," he said.
Bush said he had a hard time believing these calls were being made to educate voters.
"That could have an adverse effect on my campaign if they're suggesting something misleading," he said.
Maynard-Moody said her campaigned did not have enough money
SEE POLLS ON PAGE 4A
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