The Bust at Stony Brook
Brooks, Thomas R.
THE STATE ,UNIVERSITY Of New York at Ston}c Brool lies ,qn : a lightly wooded rise, some five miles soutJ of , Snnith town Bay on Long juglpnd, . and. roughly ,,60 piles cast , of New...
...The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice last year cautiously concluded, "There...
...The pot heads are eager to make the 'point that "everyone 'turns on...
...drew 20 stu t s. Whe . the flag in fro it of the library was lowered because of ' the "rain,` a group of conSti is lon workers chose to interpret it as sign that the flag was about to be destroyed by the denionstrafors "Four students were beat up, one suffered two broken-" teeth...
...Kerrigan Gray, an off-and-on student at Everett Junior College, Washington, who languishes in jail under a 20-year sentence for selling "a friend," a plainclothesman, some pot...
...Of the 22 'per cent users, nearly one-fourth tried THOMAS R. BROOKS marijuana for the first time in high school and one out of seven in junior high...
...A team of Suffolk County cops did rush into the wrong building, opened the wrong door, and nearly arrested the wrong man: the respective dormitories are so much alike...
...Tire Manual ' provTdes such "deep information a^ C °Casfro'suppoi his government on the ,proceei s Tof - the 'East boast narcotics traffic]," and practical guides' . to action, such as ,,the Hate on the importance of seaichine`frigeratois (LSD, except in powder form,""must be, refrigerated) and seizing Vodka ("one of the most readily` " available' preservatives for LSD...
...At Duke, a girl was denied admission to medical school because her roommate allegedly smoked pot...
...LSD use is tailing off in reaction to growing feports ` of bad trips and possible genetic damage...
...As professor Rand views it, "this tends to suggest the view that drug users don't necessarily drop out...
...They said, `Don't worry, we've got everything.'" "They had no warrant for my roommate but they handcuffed him too while they searched the room...
...They forgot where they parked their car...
...Everyone knows it's against the law," ,olden Caulfield type informed me, "and everyone chooses to violate it...
...And, from all accounts, the pot heads at Stony Brook are—rather were—a generous lot and the offering of a joint was their most heinous crime...
...cording to the NSA, roughly 60 per cent of our colleges view student drug involvement as a -counseling or medical problem., Some universities have established a gentleman's understanding with local narcotic - enforcement officers that the police will be called in if and when any drug trafficking comes to their attention...
...like most Americans I don't, particularly...
...Naval Academy at Annapolis were dismissed in February after admitting to smoking marijuana in their rooms...
...At the universities, professors talk knowingly about "a drug culture," or "subculture," but In the dormitories or student lounges the youngsters play it like the underground, another phase of the youth resistance movement...
...tcrime-an-the-streets is to ghetto .unrest: Bo` h are equally popular crusades...
...tional ' institution practically overnight...
...Kangaroo courts, midnight searches, and informer networks figure prominently in student complaints to the NSA...
...The comparable figures for LSD use are 5 per cent male, 2 per cent female...
...that 20 per cent of the college students questioned by his organization reported "some use of marijuana...
...No One was ' arrested...
...What prompted the editorial outburst was the great Stony Brook raid of January 17 which bagged 35 alleged drug peddlers and users (24-of them students),' 10 pounds of marijuana,' one pound of hashisli, an,unspeci fied umberof "narcotic implements," 2,00() pills (pep pills, prescription drugs, and vita ), a 38-caliber pistol (actually a toy gin) ' a'kaioo, "and thiee-,dfiedpruhs...
...As one Stony Brook de THOMAS R. BROOKS fendant told me, "I had some stuff [not pot] I thought I would try but I changed my mind...
...Philip of Columbia says, "There's nothing potentially dangerous in essentially healthy studentstrying marijuana...
...I think it is...
...Guesstimates' vary so much and can be so' easily influenced by the estimator's own anxieties and personal strategies for coping with an ambiguous, emotionally loaded situation...
...Pot is a relatively new thing on campus...
...Still, it is pot that brought the cops on campus and students are worried, -enough THE BUST AT STONY BROOK so that the U.S...
...They must have asked that question 15 times...
...Student busts have risen sharply...
...As pot smoking increases on campus, there is a corresponding growth of enthusiasm in police circles for the strict enforcement of narcotic laws...
...But as one official told me, "there's a big difference between the kids getting the stuff and a real pusher...
...And, in one case, the prosecution offered to trade the dropping of all felony counts for a plea of guilty on one charge...
...According to NSA's Chuck Hollander, there were 54 drug "incidents" involving 194 arrested students reported to the NSA for the period of November 2, 1967, through January 19, 1968...
...My roommate was in dungarees and a shirt and they allowed him to change into decent clothes...
...Ithaca, as professor Rand described it to me, "is essentially an upper-middle-class school" and has a co-ed student body of 3,300...
...They took him out into the hall, checked behind his knees for needle marks, you know, the whole bit...
...If the agent had not "made himself available," it is doubtful that this young man would have become "a seller...
...J. David Hammond, administrative director of the college's health center, and Martin Rand, an assistant professor of psychology, underscores this trend...
...John De Francisco, an empathetic associate dean of students, however, warned me against taking such estimates too seriously...
...When a campus press re= lease mentioned the ' rally...
...He cited the use of student informers at Cornell and Fairleigh Dickenson last year...
...T T HE RAm was a disgrace...
...Beautiful...
...Student users with serious problems can obtain therapy without fear of reprisal from the police...
...with smalltown .mericans, using the term in a; generic sense: It is a question of control, pacqftcation Suffolk " County Police, Commissioner John Barry , justified his raid on the grounds that the University administration lacked'"cohtiol,a40 supervision...
...When we left [the dormitory], we walked out the wrong entrance...
...at Amherst, a student was arrested for distributing literature calling for legalization of marijuana (he was charged with disturbing the peace...
...Another cheery note from the campus drug scene is the report on a group of Cornell seniors who were heavy users last year but have quit now that they are in law school where a bust would end all possibilities of becoming an attorney...
...A boy laughed, "My straight roommate, they seized his five-dollar pipe...
...init Jligenee purpses...
...Moreover, there is something obscene in the energy expended in proportion to the results achieved...
...It was sitting around when one of the guys [an undercover man] made himself available, so I sold it to him...
...Dr...
...If Lang's position carries the day, it would destroy the way many good (in the sense that they are doing the best of possible jobs) colleges now handle the "drug problem...
...There are grounds for believing that while the students are users they are not sellers, not dealers...
...As one Stony Brook co-ed cooIly_ summed up the situation for me, guess it [pot smoking before the bust] was too brazen...
...Broken down by sex, 29 per cent of the males, and 18 per cent of the females at Ithaca College have tried pot smoking...
...However, instead of pushing reform, President Johnson called for more narcotic agents and prosecuting attorneys "to stop the sale of slavery to the young...
...arses "Chuck" Hollander, the young man in charge of the NSA drug desk, says, "Drug u e' has become so' frequent among college stud"etvts that it 'has relegated sexual activity tb" second' place in popularity...
...Sell" in the penal code "means to sell, exchange, give, to dispose of to another or to offer or agree to do the same...
...with a brie iiig of re porters, local govertunent officials and police office}',, ,and with the issuance of a 107-page tactic' `'plan, "Operation Stony Brook...
...though I found some of the things students told me pretty funny...
...They really tore the apartment apart," a second boy told me...
...Since I was not present during the raifl, I have had to piece together w4iaf, happe^ed from' • newspaper accounts, ihterviews 'yith faculty and students, andwith-several of , the busted youngsters...
...It should be filmed grey and granular...
...Irving Lang, general counsel to the New York State Narcotic Addiction Control Commission, has said that in his opinion university officials are obligated to report drug users uncovered by counselors...
...The most significant figures to come out of the Ithaca study indicate that there is only a slight increase in use between classes—of the freshmen, 21 per cent were users, 22.5 per cent of the sophomores, and 23 per cent of the junior and senior classes...
...The narcos' M.O...
...At that time, nearly 33 per cent of 9,978 UCLA students supposedly turned on with pot...
...liiminary "pilot surveys" and may be well off the mark...
...National Student Association now has _ a "drug desk...
...Doctor Stanrey . Yolles, director of the National Institi to of Mental Health, testified before the - Senate -Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquenc^ -on March 7, 1968...
...People would smoke joints, most, ly in ,the middle of the night when not many people . are around, but there was a lot of dealing [selling] going on, all the time...
...and finally, the file of handcuffed prisoners marching by the dawn's early light to waiting police cars...
...As for myself, I am convinced that pot should be taken off the list of illegal drugs...
...Like most of those arrested, my informant had been indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury for at least one count of selling narcotics, a felony offense that carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison...
...Modus Operandi) entails, in most instances, the pickup of a campus chick, then the branching-out for contacts, and the setting-up of drug sales...
...And, if that old saw about pot leading directly to perdition, that is, to heroin, were true one would expect some reports of "horse" tuning up on campus...
...o tonyJ3 oqk has been ;adesc ibe t. s the ,showplace ,of, he 59-camas ,State University of New: York, reflecting , in all its newness a determined effort to : create a , major educa...
...The police carried search warrants, and also "probable cause" warrants for individuals who were to be arrested if drugs were found in their possession or on their premises...
...At one level, pot smoking, pantyraids, and the eating of goldfish are all differing facets of the same phenomenon— student mania, the nutty side of the identity crisis...
...As it now stands, a lot of kids are likely to get hurt by adult foolishness in trying to enforce unenforceable laws...
...The youngsters on campus now are the first full-fledged TV generation...
...And an Essex County, New Jersey, study of 150 students revealed that more than 25 per cent used Marijuana or amphetamines...
...The point is, it's a stupid law.' Students, however, are not eager to court arrest as much as they would like to flout a bad law...
...T T ga CRACKDOWN on •sq-called campus drug abuse is to student dissent, what the war oar...
...next fall, another 1,000 will be added, and by 1970 there will be 8-10,000...
...They found everything I had—pheno, proluden, and grass .. even got my roommate with some garbage...
...This failure comes down to the refusal by Stony Brook officials to undertake the Suffolk County Police Department's narcotics educational program...
...A bunch of kids are arrested in a well publicized raid, characterized in the press as deep-dyed villains (alleged drug pushers), thieves (an early press report carried police hopes that they would uncover the proceeds of burglaries), and gun toters (not one paper that carried the news of the capture of a 38 pistol bothered to report later that it was a cap gun) . Later, the felony charges in most instances, were reduced to misdemeanors...
...And, "While searching prisoners, cars, and premises, seize all papers containing names, addresses, and telephone numbers 'which , may : later be used toi...
...Typically, this softening of the prosecution's attitude carried with it a little sting—seven years in the penitentiary...
...You know," one told me, "I was scared to smoke in the city on weekends...
...About 80 per cent of the parents who called Stony Brook after the raid asked, as a Dean put it, "not what are you letting my baby smoke, but in whose bed are you letting her sleep...
...It is tempting to agree with the Stony Brook undergraduate who said, "I think someday we'll look -back on this raid like our parents looked back on the police raids of the Prohibition era...
...Curiously, what turned off most adults appears not to be pot smoking on campus so much as sex, the discovery of a young woman in a young man's bed the morning of the raid...
...The great Stony Brook raid was a police action rooted in ideology, a crusade in fact...
...There were a handful in 1966 and 1967-5 students at Princeton, 11 at Cornell...
...In that light, are they not to be congratulated that so few-20 to 30 per cent -rtake to pot, pep pills, or LSD?,Let's face it, if the criminal sanctions, against possession were eliminated, we would not have a drug problem on campus...
...I'ri e; " ''asn't ;much—an " antiwar rally on a stormy December...
...be trapped inside...
...As the kids talked— ithey were 18- and 19yearolds but seemed a bit younger to me— they kept picking over the funny, intriguing things that happened...
...Still, that may be only a temporary phenomenon and both figures—those of LSD and of marijuana users—are based on pre...
...The process of detection," said Hollander, "has entailed the blatant breach of student civil liberties...
...Grid jury investigations, however, erg "a go4`de t more worrisome...
...appears to be good reason, to moderate present punitive legislation so that [marijuana] penalties are more in keeping with what is now known about risks: That is, they are not so great...
...Considering that we live in a drug-oriented society—if you don't believe it watch television for an evening—we ought perhaps to, reevaluate the so-called campus drug problem...
...Still, one reason given for the raid by Commissioner Barry was "a failure to cooperate" on the part of university officials in solving the narcotics problem...
...Suffolk County, be it admitted, must be one of the last places in the country where local "Support Your Police" groups are still showing that old right-wing favorite, Subversion U.S.A...
...A refusal tl ` amine'` sttiderit users Could fiead to indict me ( for contempt and .' gi lit Stony Brook faculty - members* are baffling the Suffolk Count ( 'rand pity in the courts on the, issue...
...As a junior pot head at Stony Brook told me, "last year was the year...
...In short, the cops wanted the faculty to fink on the students, a proposition properly distasteful to university people...
...While "the targets" were student pot heads, on th, whole a mild lot of criinjna1s,,-4l e tulligence sheet on each defendant carried this ominous warning: "It is not known if defendanta I7-year-old girl, in this instance] carric$ ; eapgn, buts...
...Nonetheless, there is no strong evidence of Mafia presence, or for that matter of any other monopolist on the campus drug scene...
...Last fall, the student paper at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee reported that 20 per cent of the students admitted to drug use...
...especially when it comes to penalties for marijuana use, and, on the other, a hard thrust toward tougher enforcement policies and stiffer penalties...
...Where else can you make such a good score with so little effort," a cop acquaintance recently told me...
...I'm kind of a sound sleeper," a slender youngster told me when I asked him what happened when he got busted, "and my straight roommate—he sleeps in the bottom bunk kind of looks like me...
...I had to go— take a crap—and they insisted on watching me...
...As Senator Abraham Bernstein (a Democrat from the Bronx and member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime that poked into the Stony Brook affair) put it, "I'm not concerned with the moral aspects...
...Many students (and I share their view) believe that the arrests at Stony Brook were morally, if not legally, a frame...
...For all that means in added income for local people, the inert university is s anything but welcome within the surrounding and conservative -.comm hie...
...LSD 'users are a still smaller percentage, 5 j er cent of those polled with a range of 5 to 9 per tent among' the individual colleges...
...Nor do I believe in the university as a sanctuary or students as privileged persons...
...The raid Nip, at 3 A,ht...
...It's a way, as Hollander says, of avoiding both "over-reaction and no reaction...
...Thirteen midshipmen at the U.S...
...They kept asking what I had...
...But we are, as yet, a •long way from being free of the political and 'psychological hang-ups that prevent us from handling the so-called drug problem ° with any degree of clarity...
...Officers were :instructed, "radio silence is to be maintained until raids are in progress at 0500...
...The police proceedings killed me...
...Three ree years ago, there were 1,789rstudents ;..today there are 5,200 on the 640-acre campus...
...Tlje Manual also strikes at complacency, " "We must remember that throughout rr#J1 THOMAS R. BROOKS history, nations have been conquered through the uncontrolled use of narcotics by their people" (China is offered as the most recent, indeed the only example), and it stresses the importance of the campus as a focus for narcotic law enforcement...
...In this instance, they found no drugs but did confiscate some crystals, a mask, and "a can with a moldy piece of bread"—a quick, shy smile from the boy listing the seizures for my benefit—"you know, waiting for that notorious food growth...
...Anthony F. Phillip, director of counseling at Columbia University, was emphatic: "I don't think anyone knows how many users there are...
...e to in' estigative inefficiency or to just" plain suck: The 'inquiry was ilso stymied tio: the fetu a] Of tune professors to testify on' constitutional grounds...
...He shook his head, "They set up a slew of vitamin pills alongside my pot on the desk for the photographers, made a real nice composition out of it...
...funny and ;scary, the way it Was When you were very young and sa'* them tumbling out of the station house' the first time...
...It is a monster that must be restrained by those in charge before it takes charge of all of us...
...A Stony Brook user claimed to know "one person who paid all his college expenses for four years and he's going to graduate school the same way...
...Nonetheless, one senses a legend in the making...
...But, "says Hollander of NSA, "in the 18 months that I have been director of drug 'studies for USNSA, there have been no such reports...
...Marijuana repeal bills, for instance, have been submitted in California...
...Admittedly, there is money to be made—a pound of grass costing $90, say, in the East Village can bring upward of $130 on campus...
...de, fendants' civil liberties and person—"Upon arrest prisoners will be advised of rights," end "pri'sotters will rtbt be' shacMd to The bus ;- so that: in thF,eyent;of a motor vehiclo_accident no person will...
...and some 28 students and an instructor at Wayne University are among the best known arrests of the period...
...Three hulking uniformed cops, two plainclothesmen, and two pipestem kids, a crowd in any circumstances : "I was in my underwear and they advised me to put something nice on, it might influence the judge...
...Bois(toro,by,#w:intelhggnce,sbeets and 42 dormitory maps pinpointing mom locations, ',`Operation Stony $rook" contained...
...But after this is brought to light, how does a parent feel in sending a daughter to Stony Brook...
...with nervous laughter, they made over the scary and the truly frightening into the absurd, involuntarily Pinterizing the painful and the sick, "When they told me, `You're under arrest,' I asked why...
...And this appeal drew_.more applause than pleas for more funds for education...
...A survey of Ithaca College students by Dr...
...Chuck Hollander of NSA considers the University of Vermont program, instituted by students ("mandatory counseling is about as therapeutic as mandatory Sunday school") as good 'a program for dealing with, drug abuse as you can get un4er present conditions...
...Entrapment is a nasty piece of business but justified in cop eyes by their view, as put in the Sdffolk' County ' J Mice Department Nar-, critic Squad In Service Training ManU4 that the selling of .11legal n rcotics 'and, dangerous drugs to any °f etson illicitly is one of the most heinous cnmei "8ommitted by man...
...roughly ,,60 piles cast , of New York City...
...Here I felt safe...
...What concerns Hollander, and students, more than the arrests (they do recognize the risks involved in breaking the law) , is the growing abuse of student rights...
...Finally, they discovered that people sometimes sleep on the top bunk...
...I,nclude, any and all placards_ox..gxiss" The orders, it must .be said, were'properly solicitious of the...
...most, if not all, the charges were based on sales to undercover agents...
...for 16 years or more, they have been subjected to the hardsell plugging of the universal "quick-relief" drug...
...Clearly, this amounts to entrapment, which is morally offensive, though it may be legal...
...I couldn't wait to get back here and turn on...
...He wasn't even arrested...
...It was easier to get pot than liquor...
...all right for us to smoke pot, but we shbuldn'.t blow the smoke in other peoples' faces...
...and -Michigan, and in other states legislators , have - urged studies to search out, nonpunitive approaches to drug addiction...
...Actually, there seems to be a dialectic at work—on one hand, there is fitful pressure for an easing of enforcement as well as liberalization of drug laws...
...But however you read the figures, they do point to a growth in marijuana use...
...That's what brings the law down on us.'.' HE UNDERGROUND, nature of pot use makes tit difficult to answer the question, How much of 'it`'goes on...
...It overshadows the community...
...It's a growth market, tempting to police and suppliers alike...
...Last January slightly over 2,000 students answered a questionnaire framed by Mssrs...
...What comes through, haturally enough, is something of a Keysftbne Kop caper...
...Students tend to exaggerate," he said, "for one thing, it's very `in' to smoke so even a nonuser may say he does, or that he knows many who do...
...At Stony Brook, the pot heads continued to deal with the undercover agents despite their studentgiven nicknames, "Fred, the Fed" and "John, the Cop...
...I don't consider the former trafficking...
...Hammond and Rand...
...Not hilarious, really...
...such tidbits, as ;"$ubjeat..;in the past • has Worn an .Ainierican flag, .as a ,cape," "He keeps a rifle and a bullwhip in,, this ; bodroom," ; and "Subject is a member,of the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society...
...They were very hung-up on my naming the amount of grass I had...
...THE BUST AT STONY BROOK Some of the students' and faculty at Stony Brddlc'' believe' that their ''r'aid was prompted b óut i ers', repbne to ant draft 'activity' on campus...
...In fact, I lost 50 cents on the deal...
...The survey results indicate, and not unexpectedly, that 22 per cent of the students have tried marijuana...
...THE STATE ,UNIVERSITY Of New York at Ston}c Brool lies ,qn : a lightly wooded rise, some five miles soutJ of , Snnith town Bay on Long juglpnd, . and...
...At the core of the program are lessons on how to sniff out the stuff...
...The university has arranged with both state and federal authorities to keep enforcement officers from interfering with those students participating in the program...
...Not only is this a lucrative field for organized crime," states the Manual, "but it is also a tremendous weapon in the hands of an enemy nation...
...For all their alleged distrust of adults, the kids are so very trusting...
...Incidentally, the New York law itself is something of a frame: If you give a joint to a friend, you have by law made: a sale and committed a felonious act...
...his the ;Thrie Village Herald, a local weekly, once°put it: "Webelie e' SUSB is a monster...
...because of her,_ use, of drugs, she should be considered dangerous...
...One ought not condone law-breaking...
...Users travel in the same limited circle, so naturally `everyone' they know is turned on...
...Yollbs estimates that roughly 2 million high school 'and college students have smoked pot...
...room lights glinting yellowly against the brightening of the day THE BUST AT STONY BROOK as burly cops overturn mattresses, arrange pill bottles, pot packets, and pipes on student desks for photographers...
...Time after time, the straightest people would come up to me and say, `I'm strung out, can you do me a joint?'" Student estimates of use at Stony Brook ranged from 20 to 80 per cent of all students...
...State Senate,' Majority Leader Earl`e"E: Brydges (R-Niagara Falls), called for an investigation: "This campus protest is a serious symptom especiby in time of war this kind of "thing is deeper' and "mo e'rdisturbing than the normal iniximadon to question society itself...
...But most campus sales are by way of accommodation —a student going to town for the weekend will collect cash from his friends to buy all enough pot until the next trip...
...Campus h ., theoreticians argue that the legislature witted i investigation and that the' raid' prdfetted i ll too convenient pretext ,= That tire hivesti'gatioai 'turned" up little, they Md...
...We have no realistic idea...
...The charge was based, in most if not all instances, on a witnessed sale to an undercover agent...
...Yet I am touched by the sense the youngsters give me of feeling that their privacy had been invaded, a sanctuary violated...
...An informal survey (in spring 1967) by campus correspondents at Princeton indicated that 15 per cent of the undergraduates had experimented with marijuana, hashish, or LSD...
...Visualize, as an instance, the lighting—headlights boring into the dark night as 27 police cars sweep along • the broad_ curve, of Nicoll Road, east of the University...
Vol. 15 • September 1968 • No. 5
