Proctors and students began to ask the dean for a clarification of the University's policy. There were many freshmen who thought that Harvard just looked the other way, like it does with liquor. They thought that since there had been no stories in the Crimson of students punished for using pot or LSD and no mention in the rule book of drugs, that maybe the University didn't mind.

In the end, Monro gave in. He may have been leery of the Boston papers turning his letter into another blow-up like the 1963 sex scandal. But he wrote it anyway, in no uncertain terms (Though perhaps, as some have said with some uncertain logic. Why say drugs are a "waste of time"? Isn't drinking or partying a "waste of time" too?). "It was pure Monro," one Administration official said.

Drug Rise

What caused all the concern this year was the simple fact that drug use was on the rise among freshmen, and significantly. It was increasing among upperclassmen too, but since the Houses are spread all over, the degree of use was difficult to estimate.

Dean von Stade states that there has been an increase, and some proc- tors who have been in the Yard with other freshman classes have called the rise "enormous." Graham Blaine, chief of psychiatry for the UHS, said in the middle of April that pot use was on the upsurge--a reversal of his appraisal earlier in the year.

Dana Farnsworth, head of the UHS and co-author of the medical report on drugs, tagged the amount of marijuana use in the University at 15 percent. Interviews with proctors, students, and UHS psychiatrists indicate that Farnsworth's estimate is probably low. Two extensive surveys at Yale have put the percentage there at 25 to 30 per cent. And at Princeton, a Press Club survey showed 15 per cent use.

Earlier Drug Use

The main reason for the increase, both here and elsewhere, seems to be that students are using drugs earlier. They are starting in high school or prep school and are coming to Harvard with contacts already made at home or in Boston. They know where to get the stuff and some of them come to Harvard all set to sell it. Since most drugs are obtained from friends or entry companions, the more there are with drugs on hand, the easier it is for other students to pick them up.

One big freshman seller (who retired at the end of the year) made enough money to buy a television set. But most of the students do it as a favor and don't make much profit off their sales. The ones who do are the larger dealers in the Cambridge area (some of them former Harvard students), who in turn get drugs from New York and, ultimately, from Mexico.

But even though this traffic was going on, the Administration did not find out about much of it until February, when three Holworthy freshmen were turned in by a friend to their senior adviser. The adviser shook them from their sleep the next morning and grilled them on their activities at an M.I.T. pot party the night before. The students were badly shaken by the third-degree treatment, but the Ad Board took no action against them. No one had actually seen them smoking.

Administration Shaken

The Administration, in turn, was badly shaken by the sudden revelation that such things were going on. They knew there was more, but there had been only one other case the whole year. Von Stade was especially distressed.

There was another incident, even larger than the Holworthy one, that occurred at the same time among a group of five or six Radcliffe freshmen in Holmes Hall. Their activities had been revealed by another student, too. But they had been involved in more frequent trysts, and they were happening in the dorm itself. The North House dean had several of them sent to UHS psychiatrists--a common remedy or punishment for drug offenders.

There is far less use of LSD than marijuana at Harvard. Farnsworth says usage is at around five per cent, and most proctors and students agree. Perhaps because some of its bad effects are so well publicized, LSD is certainly not found in abundance at Harvard. One freshman may have told why when he said, "I used acid a lot before I came here, and I'm going to use it next year when I leave. But there's no sense using it here. I'd just be flipped out all the time. I wouldn't want to go to classes or do anything. There's no sense using it here."

It is doubtful that either the Monro letter or the Farnsworth report will change the attitudes of many students on drugs. Dean von Stade and others have feared that freshmen, who come to Harvard often alone and without friends, are easily coerced into taking drugs when they are approached by new acquaintances. The Monro letter will at least give them more reason to say no, von Stade said.