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Thursday, February 16, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinion
Fight drugs with treatment
Flog the drug users. Kill the drug dealers. Just say no. Or just legalize everything.
In the past few years, as the drug problem has become a media issue, politicians have been offering many trite and impractical solutions. But obvious and practical ways to make a difference remain pursued.
a Nurse in a Navy Reagan trotted across the country singing, "Just say to no drugs," and many addicts were trying to do just that. But how do addicts say no to a high that controls them? They don't - unless they can get some professional help.
unless . . .
However, help can be hard to come by. Accounts from cities throughout the United States, including New York City, Salt Lake City and Kansas City, Mo., tell addicts who want to get off drugs and get their lives back in order, but they can't. The addicts can't afford treatment or can't get into government-sponsored programs.
sponsor offer program
The Kansas City Star recently reported that fewer than 300 beds are available at the Kansas City area's 11 public clinics for chemically dependent indigents. Waiting lists for the beds stretch to eight weeks.
According to the Star, base rates at the private clinics range from $200 to $480 a day, with extra charges for many services. Public clinics only cost the patient an average $45 a day, and the patient only pays what he or she can afford.
stretch to eight weeks. Private clinics also exist — 19 in Kansas City. But unfortunately, many who really need the services can't afford the high cost of a private clinic.
he patient only pays what he can Federal and local governments should do all they can to economically promote public clinics for substance abusers. However, between 1980 and 1986, while Nancy sang the "just say no" blues, federal money for treatment programs decreased.
Since 1986, federal spending for treatment programs has increased slightly but obviously not enough. If substance abusers are desperate enough to ask for help by going to clinics, the government should be willing to help.
criteria, the genders And what more concrete way is there to decrease demand for drugs than curing those who are dependent on drugs? Health officials said that treatment programs were more cost effective than imprisonment and cured the problem rather than attacked the symptoms.
Cindy Harger for the editorial board
Mays learned good lesson
P. J. Mays, the man in the middle of the Missouri basketball controversy, probably didn't want his mother fighting his battles for him.
I'm sure he would have preferred to continue pocketing the money he most likely would have received from Missouri boosters, assistant coach Bob Sundvold or whomever.
But in this case Yvonne Mays, P.J.'s mother, knew best. P.J., who reportedly received an airline ticket and was offered a spot in a work study program at Missouri (both in violation of NCAA rules), could have substantially hurt his college basketball career if Mom hadn't been there to step in
Yvonne Mays recorded a conversation with Sundvold in which he admitted paying for two airline tickets for P.J. and asked Mrs. Mays to tell a Missouri athletic department official there had been a misunderstanding about who bought the airline tickets. Sundvold has since suspended by Missouri.
Had the NCAA found P.J. actively participating in the Mizzou hijinks, he could have lost a basketball scholarship and, more importantly, a chance for an education.
decent to the murky depths of ROVIL's premises.
In fact, Yvonne is a hero, as she should be.
As it stands now, Yvonne and P.J. are watching from the safety of the shore as Missouri basketball begins its slow decent to the murky depths of NCAA probation.
In fact, Yvonne is a nice person. "Some people are saying, 'You could probably get some money off of this,' It's not about money," Yvonne said in a Kansas City Times interview. "I don't like the way they handled my son's situation, and I don't want them to be able to handle another kid's situation like this."
nature that the hands grabbing at her son's basketball eligibil ity took a great deal of courage, especially since those hands belong to a Goliath basketball power like Missouri.
Yvonne can a message to Missouri that other parents with potential powerhouse players also should send to colleges courting their kids: My kid's education comes first, and no amount of graffit is going to change that.
Mark McCormick for the editorial board
News staff
Julie Adam...Editor
Karen Boring...Managing editor
Jill Jess...News editor
Deb Druver...Planning editor
James Farquhar...Editorial editor
Elaine Sung...Campus editor
Tom Stinson...Sports editor
Jamee Swainkowski...Photo editor
Dave Eames...Graphics editor
Noel Gerdes...Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Debra Cole...Business manager
Pam Noe...Retail sales manager
Kevin Martin...Campus sales manager
Scott Fragar...National sales manager
Michelle Garland...Promotional sales manager
BradLenhart...Marketing manager
Linda Prokop...Production manager
Debra Martin...Asst. production manager
Kim Coleman...Co-op sales manager
Carl Cressler...Classified manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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Attending a funeral for the living
Some sobering thoughts on the homeless wander into a drunken evening
When a half-dozen college students wander out on a Monday evening to a bar, they scarcely expect much beyond drunken buffoonery and decadence. My friends and I got that and more. A funeral. A funeral, and we the pall bearers.
We were eating chips and sauce and drinking Michelpit pitchers at an emptied local tavern when a bearded, glassy-eyed man wandered over to our table. His mere presence halted the friendly conversation among our boisterous group. Did he pull a gun? Make threatening remarks? Nothing. He just made a random request to anyone at the table who would answer
'Anyone got a cigarette?'
He smelled pretty rancid. His clothes were unkempt. His speech was slurred, and he was obviously drunk.
But far be it from six college students submerged in an alcohol haze of their own to take heed to a man who resided on skid row. Six aspiring professionals, wallowing in thoughts of watermerton shots and anthropology exams. Wallowing in themselves and in each other.
He repeated his request.
Finally, I said, "No, we don't smoke." Still, cigarettes seemed of secondary concern. Actually, the man was seeking shelter from subzero temperatures and a wind chill 25 degrees below.
Staff columnist
Steve Brown
Staff columnist
The man stood near our table glaring at us occasionally. We merely ignored him in unison. Why? He didn't pull a gun, nor did he make threatening remarks. But skid row, with its somber consequences and demeanor, has no place in a college bar — where the money-makers of the future come to escape the turmoil of academic life. Skid row is the residential intaglio that exists somewhere else, somewhere far away.
And I was no different. I, too, held a cotton-candy viewpoint of my surroundings. As our conversation continued, despite the man's presence, we took part in the appalling dismissal of another human being. A funeral, of sorts, for a man who lived and breathed only three feet
The manager came over and gave the man cigarettes, hoping that would get the man to leave. He merely moved to another part of the bar and out of our sight.
But then there was the coughing — the consumptive coughing that left us feeling uneasy.
The man who threatened our peace of mind and shook our faith was still nearby.
siblings out.
The manager went back over to the man, who came back into view again. This, after all, was not a fraternity boy with pneumonia or a sorority girl with strep throat. It was not even a business major with a common cold. It was a skid row bum hacking away, disturbing the allegedly respectful patrons of a Lawrence tavern.
I looked at a friend sitting across the table. She was cockeyed drunk and had a fairly alarming cough of her own. But she was a sorority girl. A collegian with a cold. A respectable citizen, of sorts. Might even be a taxpayer someday if all went as expected. No one would come over to her and ask her to take her ill, drunken self out into the cold. No one would be laying the groundwork for her funeral — not while she was alive and breathing.
Where is skid row, anyway? And why?
The manager finally succeeded in getting the window closed and locked through the window as the man walked and disappeared into the cold night.
Ared into the cold night.
The manager walked over to me.
he cold like that.
"Boy," he said. "I hate to send anyone out into the cold like that."
Yeah, I said. "Me too.
It really was cold. Ice cold.
■ Steve Brown is a Kansas City, Mo., senior writer in journalism
majoring in journalism.
Raise was deserved
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
After seeing numerous attacks on the idea of a congressional pay raise, and especially Tom Wilhelm's column in the Kansan on Friday, I felt that someone needed to speak out in favor of the raise.
Wilhelm said: "... most congressmen already make more than $135,000 a year, not including the honoraria and other peripheral profits ... in case Wilhelm hadn't been paying more to the foundation, he would raise to 30 percent also would have eliminated outside income sources like honoraria.
"... about 35 percent of congressmen are bona fide millionaires ..." without going into whatever "bona fide" means, his figures show that 65 percent, almost three-quarters of congressmen are not millionaires. Does Wilhelm want most congressmen for the sake of a few?
"Another way to determine the appropriate price for public performance is to look at other federal employees . . . federal employees got a discount because of a one percent peer 2 percent cost of living adjustment."
True. Also true is the fact that congressmen have not had a pay raise, cost-of-living or otherwise, since the early 1970s. By Wilhelm's own comparative argument, congressmen are certainly long overdue for some form of increase.
Many ridiculars have said, in mock sympathy, "Oh, poor congressman!" Not able to keep up their two houses." I would hardly expect a recently elected congressman to give up his home in his native state, and I seriously doubt many of these self-appointed purse watchers would do so if they got a temporary job. You could work in Washington, it would be somewhat impractical for most people to commute. Hence the need for two homes.
Lest we forget in this tit-for-tatting about whether congressmen deserve the raise, the proposal would also have given raises to many other federal workers. Federal judges, for example. The best lawyers, the ones that would make the best judges, can make more in private than they could on the federal bench.
If we the people want the best for our government, we're going to have to pay to get it. The ideal of selfless public service is, for the most part, dead; while many might mourn, its death is a fact and must be dealt with pragmatically.
This is not to suggest no improvements could be made; certainly the financial practices of many congressmen are not exactly laudable. But we should remember that many of these practices have been inspired by the work of Jesse James, who would deal with. By giving them a reasonable increase, we can eliminate the need for the less-than-ethical practices many use now.
Travis Butler
Lenexa Junior
Twisting the facts
I find it ironic that David Ambler's "Guest"
Shot" (Feb. 9) urges all of us to take action against anti-black injustices should be followed the next day by Christopher Wilson's column with the opposite thesis! In opposing affirmative action. Wilson apparently believes that the elimination of de jure discrimination is the end of our obligation as a society, and that remedying de facto discrimination against blacks is not a sufficiently pressing concern to justify federal action.
I would like to remind him that affirmative action programs are not, as is commonly held, intended solely to remedy historical discrimination, but also to partially alleviate the continuing, persistent discrimination of the present day.
For example, a recent study showed that banks are twice as likely to deny loans to blacks, compared to whites of the same economic status. In this climate, how can minority contractors in Richmond or else where compete fairly? If black-owned businesses are charged interest, as the bank does, how can they ever submit the low bid? In this climate, the spoilies continue to go to the whites rather than the most qualified.
I also would like to ask Wilson if he can really believe the far-fetched notion that bigotry is inculcated in our society by affirmative action programs, rather than learned from parents, peers, Hollywood stereotypes and so on?
Compaliency is the greatest danger, and so we should redouble our commitment to corrective measures rather than follow the retreat sounded by the Rehquist Court.
Chaz Schlindwein Math department instructor
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed