Dartmouth Dean Issues Warning In Letter on Student Drug Usage

The Dean of Dartmouth College has sent a letter to parents of students advising them that the college "has no intention of protecting a student who has violated the drug laws."

Dean Thaddeus Seymour, in the letter sent out last week, informed parents that "a student apprehended in an actual violation would be turned over to the authorities."

"Our first concern is that some students have the mistaken notion that the College is a haven which will shelter them from the drug laws," Seymour said.

A student-faculty task force has been studying drug usage at Dartmouth since January 18, the day after drug raids at the Stony Brook campus of New York University. The letter to the parents and an enclosed summary of state and federal narcotics laws are the first results of that task force investigation.

The letter concludes, "We assume that there will be specific action this spring, both disciplinary and legal."

But according to the Dartmouth,there have been no raids since it came out last Thursday. One student has resigned from the college as a result of campus investigations, but authorities outside the college have taken no action against him, an editor of the Darmouthsaid yesterday.

Campus Puzzied

The strong wording of the letter, plus the evident lack of action by the administration in pursuing it, has left the campus questioning whether the letter is a warning of raids this spring or simply a formulation of the official Dartmouth position in the drug controversy.

In the height of the drug discussion at Harvard last year, John U. Monro '34, then dean of the College, sent a letter to the class of '70 warning of the medical effects of marijuana and LSD. But there was no mention of Harvard's legal position.

One high Harvard official said, "I don't know of Harvard ever referring to out-side authorities in regard to problems with the more mild drugs."