Now I know WHY San Diego State is a party school, so to speak.
SDSU drug sting draws scorn, praise
President reaffirms move to invite feds
By Sherry Saavedra and Kristina Davis
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
May 8, 2008
The unusual move by San Diego State University officials to invite federal drug agents to infiltrate the campus is sparking concern and criticism but also drawing interest from college administrations elsewhere.
Carole Kennedy, a political science professor and head of SDSU's faculty union, said she was dismayed by the level of drug activity on campus. But Kennedy said she also was disturbed that the university's president “unilaterally allowed” undercover federal agents to gather intelligence from student organizations.
It sets a bad precedent, Kennedy said.
“Now it's drugs,” she said. “Maybe next time it's about political dissent. . . . What happens when you have students talking about federal income tax policy, saying they're not going to pay their taxes? Are they going to bring in IRS agents?”
SDSU President Stephen Weber stood by the decision.
“I can tell you that the feedback I have received thus far from members of the campus community, our alumni, parents and friends across the country strongly supports our actions,” Weber said in a statement released yesterday.
The debate follows the arrests of 101 suspects, including 76 SDSU students, the result of a yearlong investigation, which culminated Tuesday, into drug dealing on and near campus.
In other developments yesterday:
Authorities said the investigation could expand to high schools and other colleges. They believe one of the suspects arrested also was dealing drugs to a small number of high school students.
Authorities announced the arrests of five more suspects late Tuesday. Some of those arrested were roommates of the original targets who also had a large supply of drugs in their possession, said Damon Mosler, chief of the narcotics division of the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.
“One had about a hundred tabs of Ecstasy,” Mosler said.
Eight men who a judge said were at risk of “poisoning this community with drugs” pleaded not guilty to drug charges in San Diego Superior Court.
Defense lawyers asked that some of the men be released because they had no criminal records, but Judge David M. Szumowski refused. Szumowski said the charges indicate the men pose a risk to the community.
Defense attorney Marc Carlos, who represents Jarrod Skippon, 19, said outside the courtroom that prosecutors are “making this a lot bigger than it actually is.”
The accusations against those arrested “generally are small transactions,” Carlos said.
“The fact that there's drugs on college campuses is not new,” he said.
Almost half the nation's 5.4 million full-time college students abuse drugs or alcohol at least once a month, according to a 2007 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
San Diego State had 190 drug-related arrests last academic year, compared with 59 at the smaller University of California San Diego and 33 at Cal State San Marcos.
In protest of the drug raids, members of the SDSU group Students for Sensible Drug Policy hosted a mock graduation on campus for the arrested students and two students who have died in the past year under drug-related circumstances.
“I don't think that SDSU should have invited federal drug officials to come smear our campus and make it seem like it's a big drug land,” said Randy Hencken, outgoing president of the student group, which supports the legalization of drugs and access to treatment. “I think that we needed to address this issue in-house.”
The group called for a policy to protect students who may be high from being punished when they call to report an overdose of a friend.
Graduate student Sarah Fredrickson supports the arrests and calling in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“If you do drugs and you get caught, you should go to jail,” Fredrickson said.
Tod Burke, a criminal justice professor at Radford University in Virginia who has researched the use of informants on campuses, said schools often don't call in federal agents because they don't want to be associated with large-scale drug investigations or the publicity that follows. Plus, colleges are supposed to encourage an open exchange of ideas, Burke said.
“Can you really have that when people are looking around them saying, 'Is this person a narc?' ” Burke said.
On the other hand, he said the DEA did a good job in this investigation and that SDSU has laid the groundwork for other schools.
Eric Reichel, campus police chief at CSU Chico, said his department's collaboration with federal officials is largely limited to joint task forces.
“But I would not hesitate to request (federal) resources if we needed it,” Reichel said.
Orville King, UCSD campus police chief, said he has heard of no other colleges asking for help from federal agents in drug cases, including his own.
“Certainly an investigation of this scale, given the number of warrants that were served and arrests that were made, would require support from other agencies. . . . I probably would have asked for help from anyone who was available who had the necessary skills,” King said.
Mosler said all college campuses have drug activity, but that it's rare for one to contact the DEA.
“I think every college is somewhat reluctant to acknowledge a drug problem,” he said.
Mosler said the DEA wouldn't be interested in just any college drug sting.
“They're trying to catch the bigger fish,” he said.
Staff writers Ray Huard and Mark Arner contributed to this report.
Sherry Saavedra: (619) 542-4598; sherry.saavedra@uniontrib.com
Greeks allegedly turned to greed
UNION-TRIBUNE
May 8, 2008
My word, times have a-changed at my old alma mater.
When I attended San Diego State University in the late '60s – and when I taught there in the '70s – the typical Greek male was a well-groomed, well-proportioned business major with his clear eye on a corporate future.
Pot? Diet pills? Maybe a few times as an “experiment.”
But the after-hours focus was on Bud, not sinsemilla buds. Acting out and throwing up, not freaking or munching out, was the normal outcome of weekend excess.
The avid midnight (and noontime) tokers of that absurd era were the long-haired non-Greek students, many of whom hitchhiked from the corner of Montezuma and Remington roads with hand-painted signs telegraphing their beach destination – OB, MB, PB – to passing VWs.
These were the hippie kids who listened to KPRI, San Diego's seminal FM “underground” rock station, and bought (and sold) drugs in a loosely organized black market.
By and large, fraternity men (and well-mannered sorority women) were the reassuring counterweights to the counter-cultured students who routinely risked going to jail either as a small-time trafficker or illegal drug user.
These were the opposite poles I observed every day on campus: The Greeks were, by definition, good, if not gods; the Freaks were, by definition, soft-hearted outlaws.
That old social order explains why this balding Boomer is having a hard time digesting the giant drug bust on Montezuma Mesa.
Mind you, I'm not at all shocked that drug use is rampant at State or any other college. The culture is besotted with drugs. I watch TV series like “Weeds.” I've seen movies like “Blow.”
No, what blows me into the weeds is that seven – seven – fraternities are alleged to have been involved in the campus criminal ring.
At State, the Big Men on Campus, it appears, have devolved from scholar-athletes and future captains of industry to below-life entrepreneurs whose infernal products killed a Poway girl a year ago.
Theta Chi, the fraternity investigators identified as a major hub of cocaine retailing on campus, prides itself on its lofty statement of purpose.
This sacred creed is repeated by members at chapter meetings.
For your inspiration, here is the Theta Chi creed:
I believe in Theta Chi, its traditions and its ideals. Born of sturdy manhood, nurtured by resolute men, ennobled by high and sacred purpose, it has taken its place among the educational institutions of America as a promoter of knowledge, an advancer of culture and a builder of character.
It inspires true friendship, teaches truth, temperance and tolerance, extols virtue, exacts harmony, and extends a helping hand to all who seek it.
I believe in the primacy of Alma Mater; in the usefulness of my Fraternity, in its influence and its accomplishments and I shall do all in my power to perpetuate its ideals, thereby serving my God, my country and my fellow man.
In light of recent events, I'm submitting an SDSU update of the flowery old mission statement:
I believe in Theta Chi, its criminal business ethic and its dedication to peak highs on campus. Reborn of brazen dope dealers, nurtured by Mexican cartel gangsters, enriched by technological enterprise, it has taken its place among the gun-toting drug merchants of America as a promoter of psychotic frenzy, an advancer of fatal overdoses and a builder of brotherly wealth.
It inspires sleazy capitalism, teaches Deceit, Intoxication and Exploitation, extols honor among thieves, exacts a fair cut from nearly pure Colombian cocaine, and extends a helping hand to all who seek a hit of dope via text message.
I believe in the primacy of the bong and the coke spoon; in the cover from narcs provided by my Fraternity; in its market penetration and I shall do all in my power to enlist more student marks, thereby serving my supplier, my brothers in crime and, last and definitely least, my dumb-as-dirt clients.
As charges are filed – and sentences handed down – young lives will be put on hold, their futures frozen behind bars.
The district attorney, stung by embarrassing reversals in court, will be only too happy to throw the hardback book at the campus dealers and their eager clients.
Justice, especially when it comes to drugs, is a sort of lottery. A relative few get caught. That's the take-the-money-and-run reality of the drug trade.
One of the dirty, but obviously undocumented, secrets is how much illicit money has funded legitimate businesses and real-estate purchases for now law-abiding citizens.
So the wonder isn't that students broke the law to feel like big shots and make easy money on a product whose black-market value is propped up by its illegality.
No, the wonder, at least to me, is that a network of fraternities, societies that draw upon religious and patriotic values, could appear to operate as virtual fronts for a drug ring.
If it were possible to go back to SDSU in the '60s or '70s and report that news flash from the future, long-haired students would have looked at you as if you were crazy and said, “C'mon, man. No way. But whatever it is you're smoking, can I have a hit?”
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
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