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4 » The Reo and Black • Wednesday, May 30, 1990
OPINIONS
■ QUOTABLE
"I'm sitting here and this hippie dude comes up to me
and says. 'Hey, man, you wanna buy some leaf?'
— Gerald Lowe, explaining the events that led to his arrest last
Friday for possesion of marijuana with intent to distribute.
The Red & Black
Eitabuehed 19*3—incorporated 1990
An independent itudent neutpape' not aftiiated unth the I'ni.enty of Georgia
Charlene Smith/Editor-irvChief
Amy Bellew/Managing Editor
Hogal Nassery/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
Don’t do it
The tragedy that often results from drunk driving
was well-illustrated in the River Road perimeter
parking lot Saturday night. Three pedestrians were hit
by a car whose driver, police say, had a blood alcohol
level of .19 (the legal limit is .10). One victim sustained
serious head injuries and was unconscious for most of
the day Sunday. She is expected to remain hospitalized
for another week.
The National Highway Safety Administration
(NHSA) defines alcohol-related crashes as those
involving someone with a blood alcohol content of .01 or
above. To put this in perspective, a 160 pound person
who consumes 3 drinks in two hours will have a blood
alcohol level of around .05.
NHSA reports that one person dies in an alcohol-
related traffic accident every 22 minutes, and about
sixty-five people are killed each day. About 23,000 were
killed in 1988, a year in which NHSA says alcohol-
related accidents accounted for 50 percent of all traffic
fatalities.
A lot of people try to make excuses for why they
drive drunk. Some people even say that they are
clearer-headed after a few drinks. Well, this is a lot of
bunk — there are no excuses for drinking and driving.
Even if you must leave your car overnight, even if it
embarrasses you in front of your date and even if you
feel completely in control, do not drive after drinking.
If you don’t believe that drinking impairs you, go to
the Tate Student Center this afternoon and check out
the DUI Day demonstration put on by campus groups
concerned about alcohol misuse. University leaders
will drink alcohol and be continuously administered
sobriety tests. The University Police will periodically
administer breathalizer tests.
Hopefully most of us won’t have to experience a
personal tragedy before we learn to drink responsibly.
It may sound trite, but that girl in the hospital could
easily be you, your loved one, or your victim.
Come together
The burst of economic growth and prosperity that
hit the South in the late 80’s has been felt in Athens, as
well. As we move into the 90’s, it’s important that we
continue the progressive trends that will prove
necessary to this area’s future.
This is why it is so crucial that Citizens for a
Unified Government, the organization that is working
for the consolidation of the Athens city and Clarke
County governments, should receive support both from
University students and residents of this area.
Unification would benefit the Athens/Clarke
County community in many ways. It would involve the
establishment of one government with one chief elected
officer and a ten-member commission. The creation of a
single, cohesive governing unit would go a long way to
eliminate a lot of inefficiencies and red tape that
residents deal with now on a daily basis.
Instead of five different police stations, Clarke
County would harbor one. Instead of applying for two
business licenses, entrepreneurs would only apply for
one.
Most important for students, though, is the impact
this change will have on the current voting wards. If
Athens and Clarke County are unified, voting wards
will have to be re-drawn. The county will be divided
into eight wards, and most of the University would be
included in one voting ward. This would be a
tremendous coup for students, who deserve a louder
voice in local politics.
The same “forces that be” that blocked the will of
the students for years, have a vested interest in
maintaining the status quo. This makes it even more
important for students to get involved now, while the
potential for change exists.
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Good semester system is best option
There are good semester systems and bad se
mester systems, and there are good quarter
systems and bad quarter systems. Right now at
this University we have a bad quarter system,
and I would like to see us move to a good se
mester system. Not because I think the se
mester system is intrinsically better than the
quarter system, but because I think our current
system is harmful to those trying to teach and
learn under its restrictions. It’s much easier to
replace an outmoded and problem-ridden
system than it is to try and correct one problem
at a time while fighting the tremendous institu
tional inertia that resists any progress or im
provement.
The criteria I use to distinguish a good
system from a bad system have little to do with
the difference between dividing the academic
calendar three ways versus two ways and much
to do with factors that are adjustable under ei
ther system. These factors include the starting
and ending dates of the academic year, the flex
ibility of assigning different credit hours to
courses, the ratio of instructional minutes (time
spent in the classroom) to minutes available
outside of class time, and the quality of the cur
riculum.
Under the current system our calendar runs
too far into the summer. Most other colleges
wind up their academic year in April or early
May which means their students are starting
internships and summer jobs right after our
midterms. In addition, high school students
finish the first week of June. This means that
many summer opportunities are lost by the
time we finish exams. Although we can work
into September, employers seeking to employ
students for the summer prefer the earlier
Rob
Nelson
starting date. Students who enter the job
market right after graduation are also finding
themselves at a disadvantage because many
employers begin formal training in early June.
We could split winter quarter around December
break, but a better solution would be a change
to a semester system.
One factor that seriously affects the quality
of education at this institution is the number of
instructional minutes for each class. Currently
the Board of Regents requires 2500 minutes of
instruction for each 5 hours of credit. For class
room intensive courses like lab sciences or for
eign languages, this is a reasonable amount of
classroom time. But what about the humanities
and social sciences and other courses that
should provide a lot of time outside the class
room for doing research, writing papers, and
working on group projects? Tying the credit
hours of these courses to minutes spent in the
classroom, damages the learning experience by
forcing the faculty to develop curricula that
stress lectures over skill-developing modes of
learning like writing papers and interactive
modes like group projects.
Certainly lectures can be replaced with dis
cussion time, but discussion is only effective if
students have the time and means to under
stand and absorb the material. In addition, dis
cussion classes mean smaller class size which
increases faculty work loads.
The Regents allowed the Law School to lower
the number of instructional minutes per class
in its curriculum when it switched over to se
mesters. If a semester system is proposed to the
Regents, there is no reason to suppose that they
would not allow us to do the same.
A switch to the semester system would give
us the opportunity to correct a number of prob
lems and make several improvements at the
University. In addition to solving the calendar
problem and decreasing the number of instruc
tional minutes, a change in systems would
allow substantial improvements in the curric
ulum. We could adopt a system that allows flex
ibility in assigning different credit hours to
courses. This would involve a major reworking
and improvement of the core curriculum, and
academic departments would have the opportu
nity and the impetus to rework their curricula.
Those concerned that teaching loads, re
search time, and salary issues might be
changed to the detriment of the faculty, should
not look at a switch to the semesters as a plot by
the administration to get more work for less
pay. They should see it instead as an opportu
nity for the faculty to rethink and redesign the
calendar and the curriculum to provide a better
environment for teaching, learning, research,
and service.
Rob Nelson is a senior twentieth century culture
major.
Drug testing reactionary, ineffective
As we enter the final decade of the twentieth
century, public opinion polls show that most
Americans see drugs as the preeminent
problem facing the nation. In response, govern
ments at every level are clamoring to enact
tough laws to respond to the perceived drug
crisis. Central to the drug control strategy at
the federal level and in many states is testing
the urine of government workers for drugs. In
its last session the Georgia legislature passed
one law that requires drug tests for law enforce
ment officers and other “sensitive” positions.
Another mandates drug tests for all new state
employees and public school teachers.
Interestingly, recent public concern about a
drug problem occurs at the same time that so
cietal drug use is decreasing. National Institute
of Drug Abuse (NIDA) statistics show that the
use of illegal drugs has been declining sharply
for years. Between 1985 and 1988 the esti
mated number of Americans who used cocaine
at least once a month dropped from 5.8 million
to 2.9 million. This indicates that a drug
strategy based on urine testing is misguided.
Severe cocaine addiction (daily use) has in
creased, but primarily among unemployed
inner city crack addicts who are beyond the
reach of drug testing programs.
There are manv sound reasons for opposing
broader use of of drug testing (even if you're not
a pothead and/or kneejerk liberal).
Drug tests trample on individual rights
G uaranteed by the Constitution. The
ourth Amendment grants Americans the right
“to be secure in their persons, houses, papers
and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures” and dictates that no searches be con
ducted without “probable cause." It seems clear
that if probable cause and a warrant are re
quired to search someone’s home, probable
cause is aslo needed to impound someone’s
urine.
Drug testing also violates an individual’s
right to privacy. A properly administered drug
test must be supervised to prevent cheating.
Urinating on command while an agent of the
state watches is degrading. Before a free people
are subjected to this humiliation, there ought to
be an awfully good reason.
Drug tests stand the central tenet of the
American legal system on its head. Instead of
being presumed innocent until proven guilty,
the individual is presumed guilty and is forced
to prove her innocence by producing a cup of
urine that is drug-free. Imagine that.
Drue tests are inaccurate and impre
cise. Urine testing is notoriously unreliable,
with even the best labs falsely finding drugs in
the urine of five percent of the people who take
the tests. (If the entire federal work force were
tested, 140,000 employees could be identified as
drug users who were not.) Poppy seeds, ibu-
profen and cold pills can trigger false positives
for heroin, marijuana and amphetamines, re
spectively. Urinalysis cannot distinguish be
tween chronic abuse on the job and occasional
use at home. Drug tests also discriminate
against marijuana users. While cocaine, heroin
and PCP vanish from the bloodstream in less
than 48 hours, THC, the active chemical in
marijuana, remains in the bloodstream for a
month or more.
Drug tests exclude society’s most dan
gerous drugs. Alcohol and tobacco kill more
than 300 Americans for every one who dies
from all illegal drugs put together, including co
caine and heroin. In 1984, alcohol took the lives
of 11,111 Americans for every death even remo
tely related to marijuana use. It is illogical and
unfair to provide sanctions for those with min
imal traces of marijuana in their system while
not even testing for the drug which causes the
most damage in deaths, workplace accidents,
and lost productivity. An applicant for employ
ment as a Georgia state employee or teacher is
banned from employment by the state for two
years if traces of illegal drugs are detected by
the drug test or if the applicant refuses the test.
The state does not test for alcohol.
Drug testing government workers is a solu
tion in search of a problem. There is no credible
evidence that drug abuse is common among fed
eral or Georgia state employees. If people are
incapable of doing their jobs safely or effi
ciently, they should be fired (or disciplined),
whether drugs cause the problem or not. Drug
tests are unnecessary, with the possible excep
tion of those cases in which we do not want to
wait for a drug abuser's imcompetence to show
up before doing something: air traffic con
troller, train engineer, etc.
If government officials are serious about ad
dressing the real drug problem, then they
should mobilize all available resources to
combat the root causes of inner city drug addic
tion--poverty, unwed teenage mothers, high
school dropout rates, etc. By focusing on such a
trivial diversion as drug testing, our leaders
risk pissing away the chance to really do some
thing about drugs.
Joe Sumners is a political science graduate stu
dent.
Moral decline of America
The recent editorial by Lawson
Sullivan citing numerous histor
ical Figures as being gay/leebian
proves nothing. Just because a
popular person does something ia
no reason for society to take up
that habit or action.
I think the Athens Gay and Les
bian Association needs a sex edu
cation book to realize that things
just will not fit together between a
man/man or women/women
relationship. Like the sins that
brought Rome down, so might they
do the earns for America.
Jamas M. Coley
junior, phyelcel geography/soclal
telenet
■ CORRECTION
A letter to the editor In Tuesday's edition of The Red and Black
was based on Incorrect Information. Davis Jones Is not a
memOer of R0TC as he identified himself to be-ln an earlier
news story.
We regret the error.