Despite persistent rumors among undergraduates of an imminent bust, University officials say they have no indication that police are planning to crack down on drugs at Harvard. But a number of recent incidents involving drugs on campus may cause administrators to reconsider Harvard's internal policies on the use and sale of drugs.

For the first time in four years, the Administrative Board is faced with a major disciplinary case involving drug traffic among undergraduates, a case which may also involve a shakedown operation on campus.

Drop-off Sites for Heroin?

And a recent arrest of a non-student in Holyoke Center may indicate that Harvard buildings are being used as drop-off sites in transactions of hard drugs.

Dean May and Harvard Chief of Police Robert Tonis both say they have never been contacted by either state or local authorities for information about drug users or peddlers at Harvard. But May denied that Harvard and Cambridge have a "gentleman's agreement" about drugs.

"As far as I know, an undergraduate selling drugs from a dormitory runs the same risks as a non-student peddling from an apartment in North Cambridge," May said yesterday.

NEWS FEATURE

Dean May, President Pusey, and several aides said that they know of no impending drug raids, but the Cambridge police have the right to enter the University with search warrants at any time. May and Pusey said that they can give no assurance that in case of a bust the police would warn the University in time to notify other members of the community even if the Administration should want to do so.

"Internally, the University has no policy with regard to drugs," May said. "We deal with each case individually as it comes before the Administrative Board." According to May, drug problems are treated as are other cases, such as shop-lifting or hit-and-run driving incidents, which come under the University's in loco parentis policy.

Dean May expressed no special concern about drugs at Harvard this year. "It's a problem we've had for a long time. Certainly there are more drugs on campus than there were in 1920, but whether there are more than there were last year, I don't know."

Rash of Incidents

Four incidents over the past month, however-two involving heroin and one involving an alleged shakedown operation in a marijuana sale-have called into question the college's reluctance to formulate a policy on drugs.

"Now. the attitude is the same as it was about parietals," said one Ad Board member who wants to formulate a more explicit policy on drugs. "We don't seek out offenders, but if a case falls into our laps, we deal with it. The difference is that there was never any danger that police would come on campus to enforce parietals."

This month, a case involving $1000 worth of marijuana has fallen into the Ad Board's lap. The case, which members of the Ad Board were reluctant to discuss, came to the Board because it set off a scuffle in a freshman dorm between a freshman and two older persons, one tentatively identified as an undergraduate, who took five kilos (11 pounds) of pot from the freshman.

The freshman had been involved in transferring the drugs, without making a profit, to another student. After the marijuana was stolen from him, the freshman told his sources, allegedly undergraduates on scholarship, that he could not pay them. They told him that they would "absorb" the $1000 loss.

For the Ad Board the case raises two major questions and leaves implicit a third:

Should drug pushing, apparently now large enough to involve shake downs and the absorption of substantial losses, be treated as an internal problem? Ad Board members expressed concern that Harvard may be becoming a

major repository of drugs, some for resale to high school students.