'Hard Stuff' Worries Local Police

"We can buy marijuana by the bushel. But it's the increase in hard drugs that's the worry." Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey uses these words to characterize the drug situation in the Ann Arbor area today. And his feelings are echoed by Police Chief Walter E. Krasny. "If we had nothing but marijuana to fight we could probably dry it up," Krasny says. "But when you've got as much hard stuff moving as there seems to be locally it's a real enforcement problem." Krasny and Harvey were among local persons questioned recently in an attempt to "up date" the drug picture in the Ann Arbor area. Both lawmen agree the "hard drug" flow has increased in Washtenaw County in the past six months and is becoming a problem of increasing intensity. Their opinion is reinforced by Matt Lampe, a University senior who directs Drug Help Inc. That organization is a voluntary unit with offices in the Ozone House at 302 E. Liberty St. Drug Help conducts a round-the-clock operation in which persons seeking aid for drug problems are counseled and channeled to other agencies geared to provide medical or psychiatric assistance. "We're seeing more hard drug problems than ever," Lampe notes. "We just don't get many marijuana cases. It's mostly involved with people on bad trips." Sheriff Harvey and Chief Krasny say their estimate of the amount of heroin and other hard drugs now being sold in this area comes partially from t h e i r departmental records and records from neighboring police agencies. "There has to be a lot moving to and through this county when illicit drugs valued at $25,000 has been seized in a two-month period," Krasny says. He says those drugs raids and during arrests made by officers from a half-dozen local police agencies operating in cooperative efforts. "This hard drug thing certainly is too big and too complicated for one police agency to handle," Sheriff Harvey says. "We've found that our best results come when departments contribute men and equipment to a common pool. Certainly the Michigan State Police, the Detroit Metro Squad and officers from departments in and near Washtenaw County have contributed immeasurably to this continuing joint effort." Because of the increase of hard drug traffic in Washtenaw County police agencies are putting most of their time and energy in tracking down heroin pushers and users. The marijuana trade, once the prime target for lawmen, has now been relegated to a secondary object of investigators. "No one should get the idea that we've abandoned the marijuana arrests and raids," Harvey is quick to point out. "No matter what the critics of the marijuana law say, it's still a law and violation of it is still bringing arrests. It's just that the hard drug pushers have become so much more active in this area than they ever have been. It's a matter of first things first." Lampe, who with another U-M student, Steve "We see many of these people in crisis situations," Lampe says. "There's been a panic reaction, we try to talk them down, calm them down. Our people are trained to do this. And we're seeing more and more hard drug problems." He says his organization is against "substituting one drug for another" as is done in the sometimes-controversial methadone treatment. He said persons coming to Drug Help for help range in age from 13 to 25. He says the youths generally are frustrated because a lack of a job, for teaching crafts, conducting group therapy sessions, counseling and recreation. He notes that youths when they first leave home relish their new-found freedom but soon find they need a job and the money it brings in. Lampe says the recreation programs now in operation in the city have little youth input in them. "The kids have no control over it. Everything is set up for them." Lampe says "most kids" will experiment with drugs. "We try to make sure if they slip they won't go into the stage of being a rational drug user. sible legal consequences of using drugs acts as a deterrent to young people. Preliminary findings in the survey indícate that knowledge about drugs and their effect generally do not act as a deterrent against their use. As Lampe and his Drug Help people found, youngsters will continue t o "experiment" with various drugs without regard to the consequences. The questionnaires bear no names or other means of identifying the individual student and the study was made with the knowledge and consent of school officials and Schwartz, ndect Drug Help on the University campus in March, 1971, directs a staff of 100 persons who work with those seeking a way off the treadmill of narcotic use. He says the work load Drug Help is carrying now from its Ozone Housse headquarters is expected to piek up appreciably d u i n g the summer months. an inability to recreational activities, family problems or personal inadequacies. He says most are white and from upper middle or middle class families. Lampe says Drug Help is operating on a modest budget. He says the city needs some type of Youth Community Center very badly. He says such a center could be used user. We try to draw from them why they want to use drugs, what's in it for them." While Krasny and Harvey have law enforcement as t h e i r professions, Lampe notes that Drug Help has little direct contact with police. "If the word got around that Drug Help calls police we'd be dead." , He says Drug Help I attempts to substitute education for prosecution. He notes his group has recently expanded its drug education activities and hopes to further expand this activity. A pilot project of assistance to those who need it and ask for it has been started by Lampe and Drug Help in Huron High School. There student volunteers, headed by a U-M student, meet several times a week with other students who have reached the drug stage where they feel they need help. The "why" of drug use which Drug Help has been attempting to uncover may be further exposed when a University psychologist and a gradúate student complete an ambitious survey this summer. Dr. Richard Stuart of the U-M School of Social Work and Miss Marjorie Schuman, a doctorial candidate in psychology, last fall launched the survey in schools in Dearborn, Willow Run, Ann Arbor and Chelsea. The survey involved the filling out and returning, by students in these areas, of questionnaires which covered the entire field of drug use and abuse. The survey has three purposes: to learn about the incidence of drug use in the four districts; to discover what type of students use what type of drugs, when they use them and what results occur; and to find out if a teen-ager is less likely to use drugs if he knows how they might affect him physically and emotionally. The study also is expected to teil Dr. Stuart and Miss Schuman if the parents. The 28-page questionnaire takes about 45 minutes to complete. Dr. Stuart says the results of the survey will be sent to school and community leaders in each area and it is hoped the survey will set a pattern for future studies of drug-related problems. Chief Krasny and Sheriff Harvey are anticipating that the study will substantiate their opinion that drug abuse locally is on the upswing among students. "Even if the kids are trying to talk it down, the pushers who stand to become wealthy in this activity are not going to give it up," Krasny notes. He says hard drugs sold and used locally are many times "combinations"- a mixture of several drugs including both heroin and strychnine. Ann Arbor pólice have several "questionable death" reports still on their records in which lethal doses of drugs were injected into the veins of victims. But because of fear for their personal safety, witnesses who could lead detectives to the killers have refused to talk. "The least that can happen to a buyer of heroin in this area is that he will have been cheated- he will have paid a hundred dollars for a little powdered milk or powdered sugar," Sheriff Harvey says. "The worst that could happen to the buyer is that he will shoot some strychnine thinking it's heroin and he'll die." The "going price" for heroin in Washtenaw County is $650 an ounce. Undercover police officers have made "buys" in that price scale and presumably are continuing to do so. But such duty is risky, slow and does not always lead to arrests. "We're after the big buys, the major pushers," Krasny explains. "The street peddlers we can always nab. To take them is only surface enforcement." Neither officer would comment on the extent of narcotic investigations in the county which now may be under way. They say when and if sufficient evidence is gathered mass arrests will be made.. The officers said recent cases have shown that marijuana dealers are "lead-ins' to sellers of hard drugs. "Marijuana is never too far from a heroin source " Harvey says. "If you find one peddler the other is just around the corner or in a rat hole somewhere."