OXFORD Marijuana Galore ?

TIM HEALD writes:

Oxford University's reputation, never particu- larly stable, seems over the past few weeks to have plumbed depths unknown since the days of Gibbon. Apart from the Franks Commission —a perpetual reminder of the university's short- comings—there has been on the one hand the inane bickering over the 'Queen and Country' debate and on the other the more alarming prob. lems spotlighted by the death of the Balliol undergraduate, Joshua Macmillan.

Both have predictably been given considerable publicity, partly on the dubious assumption that anything to do with Oxford is of national impor- tance. While the Queen and Country debate has all the ingredients and trappings of farce, the Macmillan episode and the ensuing drug stories must, of course, be taken seriously. Despite the popular press and the picture of Oxford as a city 'where I have never before seen drugs being bought and sold so blatantly and publicly,' most undergraduates remained comfortably oblivious

of the `drugs menace' until the papers drew their attention to it. Although I know several people who claim to have smoked marijuana, no one has

ever offered me any or invited me to a 'pot party.' Most people wouldn't recognise drugs if they saw them and have never been accosted by a `pusher' in the course of their university careers. Figures, inevitably suspect but more or less consistent, seem to indicate about four cocaine or heroin addicts, some thirty heavy mari- juana smokers and a sort of variegated fringe of between 200 and 1,000 occasional amateurs.

These people do not seem to come from any particular college, any particular sort of borne background, nor are they drawn from any par- ticular section of university life. Drugs, in short, remain the idiosyncrasy of a small, rather unob- trusive clique not easily distinguishable from others except, perhaps — and this will delight Robert Pitman—for their predilection for tight trousers, long hair and dark glasses.

However, although there may still be only relatively few drug-takers in Oxford they are clearly increasing and it seems pertinent to ask why. Some acquire a taste for marijuana when abroad, introducing it in the same way as a less adventurous tourist might import mint tea or spaghetti. Others are apparently offered it at parties, in public lavatories or pubs, and succumb out of curiosity, a simple wish to try new experi- ences. Yet others regard it simply as an alterna- tive to alcohol, getting stoned at a party in much the same way as a more conventional under- graduate would get drunk at a club dinner.

This occasional pot-smoking has the same sort of relevance to real addiction as occasional drink- ing has to alcoholism. Most marijuana-smokers seem able to keep it in check, though clearly there are those who become dependent on it and perhaps move on to 'hard' drugs.

To outsiders hard drug addiction looks like the symptom rather than the cause of other neuroses.

In a university like Oxford these are legion: add the burden of intelligence to the curious paradox that all time is spare time yet no time not for

working in, fling in money, sex, other people, things that go bump in the night, any number of wholly personal worries and you have a formula which under certain circumstances some people arc incapable of facing.

At the moment the university's 'moral welfare' organisation exists almost entirely on a college level. No one, perhaps unfortunately, could seriously suggest that anyone should take his personal problems to the proctors, who have become almost irredeemably stigmatised as either petty tyrants or anachronistic figures of fun. It was said in one Sunday paper that they 'will regard illegal possession of Indian hemp as a disciplinary offence.' It would be interesting to know what they regarded it as in the past. More important is the Warneford Hospital, which un- doubtedly fulfils an important role in providing psychiatric treatment for undergraduates. How- ever, this is usually done on recommendations from college tutors or deans. It is these people who, under the present system, bear the brunt of responsibility for student wel- fare. Individual moral tutors are selected—as far as one can see—virtually at random from among the college's teaching staff. It's obviously not a perfect system. Some moral tutors are splendid, informed, interested, and willing and able to give advice. Others less so. A man who owes his uni- versity job solely to his knowledge of the Ancient Greeks or the Concordat of Omsk is not neces- sarily an ideal moral tutor. Equally clearly one can hardly limit college fellowships to qualified psychiatrists.

What is obviously needed is for college authori- ties and individual fellows to be aware of under- graduate problems and capable of exercising sensible judgment on them. These characteristics vary from college to college and individual to individual. There are certainly undergraduates who would never consult their moral tutors, while equally there are moral tutors who are far from aware of any of their students' problems. Inevitably, even the most selfless dons sometimes appear to make little effort in dealing with moral pupils with whom they find it impossible to get on, or whom they can't help regarding as a tiresome infringement of serious academic life.

It was significant that within a few hours of

their arrival in Oxford, the various representatives of the national press had compiled lists of sus- pected drug-takers in Oxford. While these were inaccurate and incomplete they nevertheless included some who were able to give the reporters the information they wanted. If such lists, how- ever faulty, are readily accessible to the press it's surely not too much to expect that the university or the individual colleges might make a reason- able attempt at assessing the extent of drug addiction. If such an attempt had been made what action had been taken? And anyway, to what extent should senior members of the university be held responsible for the extra-mural activities of undergraduates? Many students, who after all are not children, undeniably resent what they regard as interference on the part of dons. It is a difficult mean to strike.

Since Oxford and Cambridge began, under- graduates have always indulged in excesses of one sort or another, either with or without the consent and knowledge of the university, and often in the face of popular opinion. Though recent events have given it a new twist it is not in itself a new problem. It would be tempting to think that a panacea for all the university's ills is near at hand--and that the answer lies with Lord Franks.