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Show 'Drug subculture tells people to stay away from campus' BY PETER GILLINS Senior Editor Elroy Jones, director of University Uni-versity Police, says of campus drug use: '.'Our informants tell us that the drug subculture is telling people to stay away from campus because of the heat." Mr. Jones attributes the "heat" to Lt. Dan Waters, University Police narcotics investigator, who used to be known as "Dirty Dan the narco man" when he worked as an undercover narcotics agent for the Salt Lake City Police. Since he joined the University Police, campus drug arrests have increased sharply. University Police" made 43 arrests ar-rests in 1970 compared to 39 in 1969, six in 1968 and two in 1967. Most of the arrests were for fiscate over 1000 capsules of LSD and around 600 capsules of mescaline mes-caline last year. One result of the "heat" is that the huddle, once a favorite drug contact point, has become unpopular un-popular with those trying to "score" drops. According to Mr. Jones users are now making contacts con-tacts in Reservoir Park, or in the parking lots. Most of the recent arrests have taken place in the parking lots. According to Lt. Waters the police try to trap drug pushers through the use of undercover agents. Undrecover agents will often of-ten try to make several purchases from a suspected pusher to determine deter-mine the extent of his business. "We try to get the best evidence evi-dence we can that he is a dealer," he RfliH "Oftpn nnr rasp iq n onnfl measure the problem by comparison, com-parison, and compared to say Berkeley, our problem is small." However, he added that "any drug use is a problem from a policeman's standpoint." Lt. Waters also said that according accord-ing to his observation high school students tend to use drugs more than college students. He explained ex-plained that as a person gets more involved with drugs his interest in studying decreases, and eventually he drops out of schoool. College students can do this easily, but high school students are required by law to stay in school. "To my knowledge," said Lt. Waters, "there are no heroin addicts ad-dicts on campus. It would be virtually impossible to use heroin and keep the grades to stay here." Ha coiH ro Attn ftl : . c - when we make an arrest that the defendent pleads guilty." Students are prohibited from working as undercover agents for the police and although they often of-ten volunteer information, Lt. Waters says that he has never taken a student to court to testify. Lt. Waters said that his undercover under-cover agents are special officers who are not even known to the t"vi wmi umg uscia lail imu three general catagroies: Criminal users, who usually are involved with hard drugs such as heroin; the drug subculture, which principally princi-pally uses hallucinogens; and the social users who basically use marijuana. "These groups don't interchange inter-change much," he said. "Most of the users on campus are either part of the drug sub-culture or are social users." possession, although about 10 percent, per-cent, according to Lt. Waters, involved sales. "We try to cut off the source," he said, "but our officers run on to a lot of possession cases by happenstance." Fall quarter the University Police made two large "busts," one involving the sale of $1,500 worth of drugs to an undercover agent, in the huddle parking lot the other uncovering an LSD lab in Holiday. The lab contained equipment and chemicals stolen from the University with a wholesale value of over $1,000. Police confiscated six to eight ounces of dimethyl-thryptamine dimethyl-thryptamine (DMT) a major ingredient ingre-dient in the manufacture of LSD. Lt. Waters estimates that the lab had "enough stuff to make a half a million dollars worth of illegal drugs. "Remember that one ounce of LSD makes 350,000 doses which sell for $5 per dose," he said. Mr. Jones added that most of the LSD sold in Salt Lake is made in clandestine labs in California and that most of the marijuana comes from Mexico. "The local stuff isn't as potent as the stuff from Mexico," he said. The most common drug used on campus in marijuana, according ac-cording to Lt. Waters, although the University. Police did con- other officers on the force. They are not paid for their work. Mr. Jones added that many of the people who work undercover, volunteer their help because they have been emotionally involved or hurt by drugs at some point. Lt. Dan Waters, said that it is hard to measure the extent of the drug problem at the University. "You can't say it's heavy or light," he said. "You can only Lt. Waters thinks that drug use on campus may be attributed to the fact that college is a place for experimentation. In particular he blames the popularity of such experimental gurus as Dr. Timothy Leary. Mr. Jones added, "I think the whole drug problem of this generation can be laid on Dr. Leary's doorstep." I ' t V i . ' V f ; X -:- V ; - i V S y f J . . : u' ,.. . - . ' . v Lt. Dan Waters, University Police narcotics investigator, investi-gator, exhibits a marijuana cigarette bearing evi dence marks. This weed really is a silly millimeter longer. -Photo by Chuq |