University of Virginia Library

Practice Bust

They have had fire drills over in the
dormitories for years now and Monday night,
after the Frazier-Ali fight, some students over
in Fitzhugh dormitory decided that it was
about time to practice for that day when
narcotics agents and police will come
swarming through the dormitories looking for
students who use drugs which are prohibited
under the laws of the United States and the
Commonwealth of Virginia.

And so a bullhorn announced that police
and state narcotics agents were on hand and
that there was taking place, to use a term
coined by the current generation, a "bust" of
Fitzhugh dormitory. Students gave a pretty
good account of themselves, from what we
hear, quickly flushing illicit merchandise
down toilets or throwing it out windows,
locking their doors, and summoning aid over
the dormitory telephones. Students who lived
outside of Fitzhugh came running when they
heard WUVA's broadcast and only a few
minutes after the "bust" had been announced
about fifty students converged upon the
dormitory to watch the action.

It was all incredibly humorous, of course,
but there are those who will not think it
funny at all. One student who had lost a bit
of money on the fight and his entire monthly
supply of grass wasn't pleased at all.

The practical joke showed that a lot of the
residents of Fitzhugh had something in their
rooms which they thought should be flushed
down the toilet.

The fact of the matter is that a lot of
students around here use marijuana and
hashish quite regularly although they quite
obviously know that these drugs are illegal.
Such flagrant violation of the law means that
either the laws or the students are going to
have to be changed. We suspect that in the
long run it isn't going to be the students who
change. On the other hand the legislators who
have made themselves guardians of public
morals don't seem to be ready to change their
minds.

And so the state will continue to hire
narcotics agents to arrest students for a crime
that the youth of this country don't feel is
reprehensible at all. And one of these days
those narcotics agents might really bust
Fitzhugh, or Dabney House, or Watson. But
we know one thing. The students will be
ready.