• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1997-04-03_Vol62_No22_10

# hursday, April 3, 1997 n Li IHiTs»V/3SSrsWHL«sN»liriHsTi Chancellor Rardo Warns Campus About Rohypnol Dear University Community: The attention being given nationally to the so-called date rape drug flunitrazepam, marketed under the trade name Rohypnol, prompts me to speak to the dangers of this drug and to remind the campus of the University's Policy on Illegal Drugs. This policy is included in the faculty and student handbooks and the University catalog. The insidiously harmful effects of Rohypnol may not be fully understood by our campus community because it has appeared in the United States only in recent years. The drug is a controlled substance and it is illegal for it to be prescribed in the United States. The Student Development professional staff, through various means, has been alerting students to the dangers of this drug. I want to add my own statement of concern, especially in light of some evidence that the drug has been seen in the Cullowhee area. Rohypnol is a benzodiazepine related to Valium (but said to be 10 times more potent) and used in many other countries to induce sleep. The United States Drug Enforcement Agency is considering the possibility of placing it into the same Schedule I category as heroin. A Schedule I drug is considered to have a high potential for abuse, to have no currently accepted medical use in treatment, and to lack accepted levels of safety for use under medical supervision. Rohypnol is strongly sedating and sleep inducing, and has a strong effect on memory. All of its effects are markedly increased when combined with alcohol. Because it is tasteless and odorless and dissolves readily in liquid, Rohypnol may be ingested without the awareness of the person consuming it. It is notorious for its use to make women and men vulnerable to crimes (rape, assault, robbery, and the like) and unable to remember the event. Such effects may last for six to eight hours. The usual side effects of impaired motor skills, impaired judgment, lack of inhibitions, dizziness, confusion and amnesia are bad enough; an overdose can produce mental confusion, lethargy, poor coordination, reduced reflexes, dangerously low blood pressure, coma and death. In addition to the serious criminal and civil legal consequences that may result from using or providing this drug, persons found to have done so will face the most severe University disciplinary action. Similarly, any organization that is found to have allowed the use of this drug on its premises or on University premises will face similar disciplinary action. This message must be clearly stated. The presence of the drug Rohypnol will not be tolerated at Western Carolina University. Full investigation of allegations that it is present will occur. When, through due process, such allegations are confirmed, immediate action will be taken including suspension or expulsion from the University in the case of individuals and removal of University affiliation in the case of organizations. Sincerely, John W. Bardo Chancellor Save the Birds Campaign Dear Chancellor Bardo, Since the Belk Building was erected in 1971, a bloody problem has plagued the glass corridor that connects both parts of the building. This glass corridor, which spans two floors and measures approximately sixty feet long, kills birds. Robins, chickadees, thrushes, hummingbirds, piliated woodpeckers, bluebirds and hawks are some of the victims that have been found with broken necks lying on the ground below the window. Some of these songbirds see their reflection and, thinking it is another bird in their territory, attack. Other birds fly into the window because they see the sky and greenery on the other side. Students in the classrooms near the corridor can hear the birds thump into the window. We estimate that about 75 birds per year meet their death in this way, which would bring the grand total to about 2000 birds since the building has been built. Virtually every year students have been disturbed by this and have tried to save the birds. Various methods have been user) including pictures on the windows, sculptures outside the windows and shiny objects hung outside the windows. None.of these methods have worked for more than short periods. There are solutions to this problem but it is beyond the capacity of us students to resolve this problem by ourselves. Previous administrations have been approached with this dilemma but none of them were committed to finding and funding a solution. What is needed is a small committee of concerned students and university personnel who work together to find and implement a permanent solution. The university officials who established this building did not realize it would be cruel and inhumane. Its current administrators need to take responsibility for this mistake. People come to our campus to admire its gardens and wildlife. Western Carolina University is an enlightened community and this kind of problem should not have gone on for as long as it has. We can do nothing about the birds that have been killed, but we can prevent future deaths. How many years longer will the Belk Building be in use? If our estimates are correct, in fifty years there will be about 4000 more deaths if nothing is done to correct the problem. Let's work together to implement a permanent solution. Save the Birds at Belk Campaign WCU Society for Animal Welfare 166 Ledbetter Road, Cullowhee, NC 28723 The Western Carolinian Tony J. Taylor EXECUTIVE EDITOR Executive Directors Associate Editors Chad Leake Ads Director Alisa Carswell Art Director Tracy Hart Copy Editor Stacy Ruiz Editorial Asst. Production Staff Ad design Kevin McPherson Nezvs Ann Wright Features Bryan Sharpe Sports Jessica Devaney, Adam Riggsbee Environmental Terry K Roberts Photography Faculty Advisor Kevin Cassels Distribution Gerald McNeely Technical Service Elliot Lydel Paste-Up Isham Wilkerson Paulina Trudeau John Moore The Western Carolinian is an official publication of Western Carolina University, produced entirely by the students of W.C.U. Deadline for submissions is Monday at 5 p.m. preceding the Thursday publication date. Student-written copy is appreciated. /^ Staff meetings for / The Western Carolinian are held on Mondays at 5:30 on the top floor of the Old Student Union. Contact as by Vphone at 227-7267. Office hours are 1-5 Monday-Friday. Send letters to the editor, care of the editor: The Western Carolinian P.O. Box 66 Cullowhee, NC 28723 Keep our campus and our planet clean. Please recycle your Western Carolinian.. Dead-End Kids The major problem facing the moral fibers of the reproduc- tively agile, sexual educationally oblique parental units of this planet, is that they seem to be unwilling to take responsibility or credit for the existence of those other human forms that their coupling has spawned. Never in the history of humankind has there been such a recurrent use of the term - "it's not MY fault" - from parents whose children have taken the wrong fork in the road and somehow screwed up their seemingly hopeless lives and questionably stable futures. If it isn't the parents fault whose is it? Hollywood? Washington? Other parent's children and the corrupting influence they exhibit over your own offspring? Oh, come on.... Stop looking for somewhere else to lay the blame. Suck it up and admit that when you are wrong, you are wrong. That maybe your own embarrassment about clinically saying the words penis or vagina in front of you fourteen- year-old child, lead this child to go off and have sex and get pregnant - or get some other kid pregnant. "Melrose Place" did not help inspire your child to have sex - their own hormones did that. And as unavoidable as puberty and all its wiles are, the one thing you could have at least done is show your child how to protect themselves, rather than leaving it up to the high school tennis coach who doubles as a driver's ed instructor and health teacher just to create a full-time position at the local Woody Wilson High. (Wilson, by the way, was an American president who made Clinton's randy nature seem like a Bedouin Monk.) I would rather cut out my own tongue and use it as a pen wiper than sound like I agree with anything Dan Quayle ever said, but I believe it does come down to family values. Parents have to toe the line. You brought these little peepers into the world, now help them get through it, damn it! How can parents keep their kids from becoming 'dead-end kids' - well how about giving them a road map to go by so that they can successfully navigate their way through this pothole-riddled eight-lane superhighway of a world that's always under construction and filled with those orange and white stripped barrels. We have to stop blaming the rest of the word for our dumbass choices. Now I'm not a parent (at least as far as I know. Besides, it was her word against mine) but I am a former child and I know from whence came my views of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I still turned out OK. But I'm an exception to the rule. Not everyone can grow up in average middle America and still become a socio-political crank like me. But that doesn't mean that every kid can feel his own way around in the dark looking for the turn-on switch. And believe me - without parental guidance that turn on switch will be in the back seat of Dad's borrowed car. Or even with guidance. Some kids are just that way, but let them be that way with more than a modicum of knowledge about what to do once the switch is thrown and the hormonal flood lights come on. Now some kids can struggle past the garbage and cruel life that they may find BY JEFF MESSER themselves and find their way to the top. Some kids have that will to overcome and see beyond their parent's idiocy. After all, our current president was raised by a single mother after an abused childhood by a drunk worthless father. And Billy turned out OK, didn't he? Well, perhaps that's not the best example. Or perhaps it is. If Bubba from Arkansas had grow up with parents that worked hard to give a shit, maybe he wouldn't be hip deep in covering up his own shady past. Sayings like - "These kids loday," and "kids will be kids," is a bullshit excuse. Kids are smart. If only because they aren't overly smart in worldly affairs. You see, when you're five, who cares who is at war with whom. Everything revolves around food, fun and sleep. And everything else is filtered in via the parental units and their behaviors. After all, kids learn to talk walk and believe because of their parents. And other adults. Children grow up by imitating what they see adults do. Personally, I watched too many game shows on TV and "M*A*S*H" reruns as a kids, so I turned out to be a cross between Bob Barker and Hawkeye Pierce. Not that it's a bad thing necessarily. Too many parents seem to view children as an interruption to their lives. Something that causes, them to have reorganize everything irv their lives and careers. Well... yeah. That's kind of the deal, isn't it? If you have a baby, you can no longer follow that dream of becoming the next Susan Lucci or the next Dr. Schwietzer, or Dr. Dolittle even. You just got a new job. One of "mamma" or "papa" or whatever the little tyke decides to utter first. So do your job. Don't pack them away like German Jews and send them to the day care showers, where not only do they capitalize on. all the bad habits you taught them, but of other kids and other kid's parents. And if you don't want it to interrupt the delicate balance of your life, then buy a damn condom or some birth control pills. That way, you don't have unwanted babies and maybe - just maybe - those stupid pro-lifers and pro-abortionists would shut the hell up and get their own lives before deciding on the fates of other's lives. And while I'm on this potboiler of a cultural subject: Perhaps it is time to settle this abortion debate once and for all. Here's the deal boys and girls and socially minded busybodies alike: Abortion kills. Simple. To the point. And if you want to talk about "dead-end kids" — well, they don't get deader than that. But - BUT - not all abortions are evil. Some times it may well be necessary to have an abortion. Rape, incest, forthcoming defects that will condemn the child to a short and painfully meaningless life - all arguments heard before, but valid. Now, then, you say, I am condoning legalized abortions? No. That would be stupid. Then you'd have would-be Amy Fisher/Cheerleader/Buffy the Vampire Layer rolling into clinics like the drive-thru at Wendy's asking for an abortion. Isn't legalizing abortion like saying, "OK kids, go screw!" Not only will legalizing abortion increase abortions, but it will also increase the number of social-disease-carrying people out there, because frankly, condoms still are associated more with pregnancy than AIDS. So what do we do? What is the answer? Well. . . there is no answer. Neither side is right. Neither side is wrong. There will never be a way to settle it. For every argument for, there will be a quick answer against. So all of you out there taking up this useless cause - forget it! Shut up and go home. Teach your kids how to behave and live and have sex responsibly and we won't have this problem. It's that simple. If you want abortions to stop - then make sure your kids know how not to need one. And then that simple. If you want abortions to stop - both sides will lose their argument. It's a sad, sad world we live in, where slogans like: "Kids, they're all we've got" are only slim platitudes to make us sleep better at night, thinking that we've done all we can for their future, while turning a blind eye to the denial we sink them in like a useless bowl of soup when they have the sniffles (hot foods make your nose run even worse). We're not helping by ignoring the problems. They won't go away - and neither will your kids if you treat them right. Don't give them a reason to turn to drugs and sex and violence as a way to express themselves. Give them morals and values and dignity. Don't give up on them, or next week they may turn up with their black Nikes sticking out from under a coroner's blanket as part of a whacked-out UFO-for-God cult with Auschwitz Applewhite as the ringmaster, spouting sci-fi babble from behind his "Doe"- in-the-headlight eyes. And don't you know that in our corruption-filled society the execs at Nike are trying their darnedest to figure out how to parlay this all into a positive ad campaign. Maybe it's just me, but I hope there's more to this race of upright-walking creatures. I hope that there is still a glimmer of hope hiding under all the cruel harsh exterior coat that blankets us all. But we have to see it, admit that it's wrong. Then, and only then can we fix it. If any of us want a future, we have to look down to see it - those little sprouts of humans are the ones who'll bring it to us. So let's keep them away from Beavis and Butthead logic. Let's outlaw any more Jim Carey movies (I know I said earlier that Hollywood is not to blame, bui why risk it). Let's give these little tykes a secure footing for what looks to be a hell of a ride into the future. Or else let's hope that Applewhite was right, shave our heads, grab a container of Mott's and kick back and wait on that hot rod to God to pop out from behind Hale-Bopp and carry us all Dante's picnic blanket.

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University's student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina University
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 1997-04-03
  • Date digitized: 2020-01-13
• Extent
  • Dimension: 14" x 11.25"
  • Pages: 14 pages
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
  • Western Carolina University -- Periodicals
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1997-04-03_Vol62_No22
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library