Should the transfer of drugs among friends be distinguished from sale for a profit?

Can use of marijuana, as opposed to sale or transfer or to use of harder drugs, be overlooked as a socially acceptable act?

Don't Deal

Consensus on the Board seems to be to continue to treat even selling as an internal problem, at least for the moment, and to punish drug use and transfer when they come to the Board's attention, though less severely than the Board punishes selling.

Equally complex issues were raised this mouth by an anonymous letter sent to Dean May accusing an undergraduate of peddling hard drugs. Copies of the letter were also sent to the undergraduate and, according to the letter, to the FBI. Dean May declined to comment on his action on the letter's contents, but he said he was "looking into the case."

Normally, rumors of drug pushing are left to individual senior tutors who, if they do anything, warn the student of the risks he is running with Harvard and with civil authorities.

The heroin incidents do not involve Harvard users, but they indicate that Harvard buildings have been used as drop-off sites for heroin and open the possibility that Harvard students are selling heroin to local high school students.

Last week, a Harvard policeman who was sent to the tenth floor of Holyoke Center to clear out high school students who often congregate there, found a "suspicious looking" man in the tenth floor lavatory. The man was brought to Harvard Police headquarters at Grays Hall and later turned over to the Cambridge police.

According to Chief Touis, the man had packets of heroin taped to his body and a syringe in his pocket. Two knives were concealed in his socks. Packets of heroin were also found taped to walls in the lavatory.

Earlier this month an Adams House janitor found two local high school students shooting heroin in an Adams House entryway and turned them over to Harvard police. Initial rumors that the students had gotten the drugs from Harvard undergraduates were denied yesterday by Dean May.