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- Here's the story in brief. Back in October I wrote an article to The Daily
- outlining my objections to drug laws in general and to Stanford's new policy in
- particular. Since then, I have been writing to many government officials. One
- of them finally answered. Bob Martinez, the new federal drug czar, sent a
- letter to Don Kennedy basically demanding that Kennedy deal with me or Stanford
- was in jeopardy of losing federal funds (just what Don wanted to here right
- now!). Three major violations are the basis of the case:
-
- o the fact that I have stated publicly that I carry illegal drugs in
- my backpack while on campus
-
- o the fact that I allowed two sophomores who were under 21 to order a
- before-dinner alcholic beverage at a dinner I hosted and that I will
- pay for out of my unrestricted funds
-
- o an incident around Thanksgiving where I advised a student to
- experiment with MDA
-
- Bob Martinez and Ken Down (the Associate Dean who suspended me) seem most
- concerned about the third item above. Oddly enough, I am convinced that the
- third item is protected free speech, but Martinez and Ken Down don't see it
- that way.
-
- I regret now having said anything about the alcohol incident. I have no
- particular desire to become a significant advocate for underage drinking. I do
- feel that those over 18 should be allowed to drink alcohol if they want to, but
- it's not as big an issue to me as the issues of violation of privacy and
- limitation of free speech.
-
- I'm kind of exhausted from a long day of talking to reporters and dealing with
- this situation, so I'm not going to say anything more for now. I will,
- however, mention that my October daily article can be found in the file
- daily9.txt and that I have written a statement of my view of the current
- situation that can be found in the file daily10.txt. These files are stored on
- my various computer accounts (n.nutrasweet@macbeth, reges@leland,
- stuart@sunburn) and are publicly readable. Macbeth supports anonymous login if
- you are on a different machine. In addition, I've made a packet with a
- hardcopy of both of those articles along with the letters from Martinez to
- Kennedy and Ken Down to me and I've left copies of that packet outside my
- office in Tresidder (room A-208 on the second floor, near the AIRPort).
-
- p.s. I will end just by noting something about press coverage. The article in
- the Chron this morning makes me sound like some kind of devil who is
- spending university money to give alcohol to kids while the article in the
- Times Tribune made me sound like a valued member of the Stanford community
- who was standing up for his beliefs about drug laws. It's amazing what a
- contrast there is in the tone of the articles. I have no idea of what to
- expect tomorrow. The Washington Post has talked to me for over two hours
- on the phone and paid to have a photographer spend an hour with me today
- taking pictures of me, Hoover Tower, and the backpack (I thought it was
- very funny when they asked me, "Do you have any objection to having the
- backpack in the picture?"). They sound like they're going to write an
- article that is sympathetic to me, but that's the way a good reporter
- always sounds, so that you tell him more than you should (and I probably
- did). Oh well, we'll see...
-