textfiles/drugs/reg-let2

From dali.cs.montana.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!news Thu Apr 25 11:43:54 PDT 1991


  On  Friday,  April  19th,  I  was  placed on administrative leave by Stanford
University pending an investigation.  I  write  this  article  to  explain  the
events leading up to my leave.
  I  have used drugs and I feel they have been a positive influence in my life.
I have watched the ever-escalating war on drugs  with  increasing  apprehension
and  disapproval.    When the federal government forced Stanford to adopt a new
alcohol and drug policy that apparently nobody at Stanford wanted, I felt  that
I could no longer sit idly by.
  I  attended  many of the discussions about the new policy to see how it would
be translated into action.  The impression I got was that little would  change.
Stanford  would  continue to internally stress its policy of respecting privacy
as long as individuals behave responsibly, but would appease the government  by
publicly acknowledging a more stringent policy.
  Many people have said to me, "Why can't you accept that?  As long as Stanford
does the right thing, what does it matter what we  say?"    I  understand  this
point  of  view,  but I personally have never been able to live with hypocrisy.
The  expectation  that  people  should  and  will  lie,  particularly  to   the
government,  seems to be an increasing phenomenon in American culture, but I've
never learned to lie without feeling some loss of integrity.   That  is  why  I
wrote  my  Daily  article  last  October  and  sent  it  to  various government
officials.  In all, I have done four things that some find objectionable.
  First, I violated etiquette, and this is the criticism that nobody  seems  to
want  to make public.  I was angry that the federal government coerced Stanford
into accepting a policy that it didn't want and that Stanford was too  cowardly
to  object.  I have vented that anger in a series of letters to the government.
My letters have been intentionally provocative and have purposely targeted  the
most  ignorant  and objectionable officials (e.g., Dan Quayle, Jesse Helms, and
Ronald Buckham, who was quoted in The Daily as saying that Stanford should  get
more "rules-oriented" RAs to police the dorms).  This, I am told, is rude; it's
not the way to get things done.  Thus, some people tell me, I have brought this
catastrophe  on  myself,  and I agree with them to a great extent.  But if this
country has reached the point where I, as a university staff  member,  may  not
attack  the  government  and  university  officials  when I disagree with their
policies, then there is no hope for preserving liberty in this country.
  Second, I  have  demanded  that  the  university  respect  my  privacy.    In
particular,  I  refuse to allow the university to dictate what I will and won't
carry in my backpack while on campus.  I  have  carried  illegal  drugs  in  my
backpack  since  the  new  policy  was instituted, which is a direct violation.
Carrying drugs in my backpack is not, in all honesty, essential to my continued
happiness.    I  did  so  to draw attention to the larger issue of violation of
privacy.  Students are much more adversely affected than I am because the  same
policy  that  applies to my backpack also applies to their dorm rooms.  How can
students feel comfortable at Stanford if they have no place that they can think
of  as  private  and exempt from meddling rules that limit victimless behavior?
There is also the question of escalation.  If  this  violation  of  privacy  is
acceptable,  why  not  require  drug tests of entering freshmen and random drug
testing of faculty and staff?  This idea has been seriously proposed by several
proponents  of  the  war on drugs.  The backpack may seem trivial, but to me it
symbolizes the entire debate, which is why I chose  it  as  my  "battleground."
Oddly enough, there has been little attention paid to the backpack, although it
might yet prove the official grounds for my dismissal.
  My third offense came about rather unexpectedly and has been reported only to
university  officials,  not  to the government (mostly because it happened just
two weeks ago).  I run a contest in CS106X and  take  the  winning  section  to
dinner  at  McArthur  Park.   I use my unrestricted funds to pay for this event
(money that I earn when I teach courses on instructional television).  When  we
arrived,  we  ordered  drinks.    Most students were either over 21 or ordering
non-alcoholic drinks, but some underage  students  wanted  to  order  alcoholic
drinks.   It seemed silly to me that I should check their IDs or scold them for
drinking underage, so I said that  I  was  not  going  to  interfere  in  their
personal choices.  The waiter did not ask anyone for IDs, and so a few students
who were over 18 but under 21 had a single  before-dinner  alcoholic  beverage.
And for this Stanford will fire me?  If so, I think this sounds the death-knell
for relaxed interaction between faculty and  students  at  social  events  like
dinners and wine-and-cheese get-togethers.
  My  fourth  violation  has drawn the most attention from all sides, and it is
the one that I am most convinced is not a violation of university  policy.    I
bumped  into  a  student that I know while we were both waiting to take the 7-F
bus back from the airport after Thanksgiving break.  Before the bus arrived  he
sheepishly said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"  When I said yes, he told
me that he wanted advice on whether or not to experiment with the drug MDA that
I  had  mentioned  in  my  article.    That  started  a  fascinating  hour-long
conversation about drug use and what we thought we could  learn  intellectually
and  spiritually  from  our  drug experiences.  He had two major concerns about
MDA: addiction and loss of control.  In response to the former, I informed  him
that  MDA is not physically addictive.  To respond to the latter, I first asked
about his previous experiences.  LSD, for example, is a  drug  that  I  caution
people  about  exactly  because  users  often  experience a significant loss of
control while under its influence.  He had tried LSD several times,  so  I  was
able  to  allay  his  fears.  I told him that loss of control is rare on MDA if
taken in moderate doses, and that in any case, it was certainly no  worse  than
the loss of control experienced while under the influence of LSD.  In answer to
his question, then, I told him that his two reasons  for  not  doing  the  drug
sounded  like  bad reasons and that I personally have had excellent experiences
on MDA.  In essence, I recommended that he try it.
  I believe that anything I might have  said  to  this  student  in  a  private
conversation  constitutes  protected free speech.  I was expressing my personal
opinion, and the student understood it as such.  The government is upset  about
this incident because my opinion differs from theirs.
  The  more  I  see the drug war proceed, the more I become convinced that drug
users are viewed in the 90's in the way that  communists  were  viewed  in  the
50's.    They  are to be wiped out by whatever means are necessary because they
constitute a plague on society.  Thus, drug education means  convincing  people
not to do drugs.  No sympathetic opinions are to be tolerated.
  My  suspension  and the current investigation of my actions was prompted by a
letter to President Kennedy from Bob Martinez,  the  new  national  drug  czar.
Martinez  says, "In all candor, I would find it beyond comprehension that a man
who openly professes to have encouraged an undergraduate to  ingest  MDA  could
continue  to  enjoy  faculty  privileges  at  a  pace-setting  institution like
Stanford University...I can think of no action more radically at odds with  the
responsibilities  of  an educator to his students."  McCarthy could hardly have
put it better.  Communists and communist-sympathizers are corrupting the  youth
of America and must be eradicated.
  Ken  Down,  Associate  Dean  of Engineering, echos this same sentiment in his
letter informing me of my suspension: "I want to be clear about my view that  a
Senior Lecturer's specifically advising an individual student 'that he...should
go ahead and experiment with MDA' is conduct, and not protected speech.  If the
conduct  occurred  as  you described it, it violates the University's policy on
Controlled  Substances  and  Alcohol,   and   would   constitute   professional
misconduct."
  If I had forced the student to swallow a hit of MDA, I can see why this would
constitute conduct and not free speech, but I do not comprehend the distinction
Ken  is  trying  to  make.  I believe that it seems different to him and to Bob
Martinez because they are so much in the anti-drug mindset that they cannot see
how  any  reasonable person could have a differing opinion, which was also true
during the anti-communist hysteria.
  I find it ironic that in 1949 Stanford's President Wallace  Sterling  made  a
comment  that  almost  parallels Martinez'.  He said, "I doubt very much that a
member of the Communist Party is a free agent.  If he is not a free agent, then
it  would  seem  to  follow  that  he  cannot  be  objective.   If he cannot be
objective, he is by definition precluded from being an educator."
  Stanford seems to have decided that the same is true of  drug  users.    This
incident  indicates that Stanford has become a full partner in the government's
war on drugs, including intrusive invasion of privacy, punishment of offenders,
and  suppression  of  dissenting opinions.  How Stanford and other universities
can do this and still consider themselves open environments that foster  reason
and free inquiry, I do not know.
  I  expect  that  the media will portray me as a Timothy Leary who runs around
advising everyone to do drugs.  In fact, I have never given  such  advice.    I
advised  a particular student to do a particular drug after having an extensive
conversation with him.  I don't want to see everyone doing drugs.  But I  would
like  to  see  college  campuses  having intelligent and open discussions about
drugs, and not simply regurgitating the government's  "drugs  are  evil"  view.
Then  individuals  would  have  the  knowledge  they  need to make informed and
rational choices about what they think the law should say (or  not  say)  about
drugs and what they will themselves choose to do in their personal lives.
  Everyone at Stanford knows that underage drinking here is rampant, that drugs
like marijuana are used by a large number of students, faculty and  staff,  and
that  the  university  knowingly  chooses to ignore such behavior.  My guess is
that in the grand scheme of things, I am actually a relatively  minor  offender
relative  to  others  at Stanford.  But I won't "toe the line."  As a result, I
expect that in the end the university will fire me for what I've said, but base
the action on the two specific direct violations of the policy: my backpack and
the alcohol incident.
  I will continue to express my  views  as  long  as  the  university  and  the
government  allow me to do so.  Because I am on paid leave, I have lots of time
on my hands, so if any dorms would like to  invite  me  over  to  discuss  this
topic,  I'd  be glad to oblige.  The only outcome that would truly sadden me is
if I'm forced to leave Stanford and nobody really notices.
  I would like to end by quoting from a pamphlet called "Vices are Not  Crimes"
written  over a hundred years ago by Lysander Spooner in response to the debate
over prohibition.  I did not  discover  it  until  after  I  had  published  my
article,  but  I was surprised to find that Spooner expresses much more clearly
than I can exactly what I feel about the government's war on drugs.

      In the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what  man,  or  what
    body  of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action,
    or course of action, "We have tried  this  experiment,  and  determined
    every  question  involved  in  it?  We have determined it, not only for
    ourselves, but for all others?  And, as to all  those  who  are  weaker
    than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusion?  We
    will  suffer  no  further  experiment  or  inquiry  by  any  one,  and,
    consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?"

      Who  are the men who have the right to say this?  Certainly there are
    none such.  The  men  who  really  do  say  it,  are  either  shameless
    imposters  and  tyrants,  who would stop the progress of knowledge, and
    usurp absolute control over the minds and bodies of  their  fellow-men;
    and  are therefore to be resisted instantly, and to the last extent; or
    they are themselves too ignorant of their own weaknesses, and of  their
    true  relations to other men, to be entitled to any other consideration
    than sheer pity or contempt.