the louiSville· cardinal vol. xlii, no. 18 university of louisville, louisville, ky. 40208 february 5, 1971
inside Drug abuse rz•s es z• n Vietnam
By D. GARETH PORTER
College Press Service
SAIGON-A leading expert on drug
problems in Vietnam says there is little
hope of alleviating drug use short of com­plete
withdrawal of American troops.
The U.S. Army's preventive medicine
officer for Saigon, Dr. John Marshall, in
an interview published by the Head­quarter
Area Command for Saigon, said
the obvious answer to the drug problems
among Vietnam Gl's is an "exodus from
Vietnam."
Drugs are often an escape mechanism
for soldiers who are in Vietnam not of
their own choice. "Many of them are
against the war in principle. The pros­pects
for escape present themselves in the
Tenant Union
struggles for
better housing
By NANCY GILSENAN
Cardinal Staff Writer
The Louisville Tenants Union promises
to wage a long, hard fight over a new
housing code to be enacted by the Board
of Aldermen this spring, according to
Jerry Becker, a local legal aid lawyer
and legal representative for the group.
At Monday's United Campus Minis­try
luncheon, Becker told a group of
about 50 students and faculty members
that Louisville landlords are seriously
threatened by demands for tenants' rights.
Becker explained that the Board of Al­dermen
appointed a committee to write
a new housing code for the city but failed
to provide for adequate tenant repre­sentation.
The Tenant's Union responded
by submitting its own code to the Board.
Landlord's liability
The tenants' proposal assures landlords
that their right to receive money will not
be taken away, but that it will be con­tingent
upon providing decent housing.
If the landlord refuses to maintain a de­fined
standard of housing, the new code
would offer several alternatives for ac­tion
including:
II" A tenant can refuse to pay his rent
and have the money held in escrow un­til
repairs are made;
Jll' A tenant can deduct the cost of re­pairs
from his rent;
II" A tenant can take his complaints to
court.
Under present Kentucky law a land­lord
is not liable to keep up his rental
units. The new code would require a lease
stating the responsibilities of each party.
Finally, the tenant is protected by a 90-
day waiting period prior to eviction after
filing a complaint.
Becker added that the Board of Real­tors
has also submitted a proposal for a
new code, but that it fails to recognize
any tenants' rights.
As its next major course of action, Beck­er
said, the union plans to stage "housing­crimes
trials," in an effort to bring the
seriousness of the problem to public at­tention
and hopefully gain support.
"14'or people wanting to get involved in
social action," Becker said, "there is no
greater movement than decent housing for
poor people."
place of the other things a soldier over
here is denied,'' Marshall said.
The Army has developed an amnesty
program as a "half-measure incentive" to
curb drug use. The program is the Army's
main effort to stop burgeoning use of
drugs, and began as a "deal" with the
drug-users and as an "administrative
stop-gap." The program was created
because the only alternative, says Mar­shall,
"was to prosecute thousands of peo­ple."
Most of those turning themselves in
under the amnesty program do so be­cause
of a habit "too expensive to carry
back to the states," or because of a
"stigma they might have with their
families," according to Marshall.
Few drug users, says Marshall, are con­vinced
that anti-drug laws are right or
moral.
Dr. Marshall's primary concern is with
heroin and other hard drugs. Drug addic­tion
has alarmed military officials in re­cent
months. All of Saigon's military units
have hard drug users, and Marshall added:
"I think I can safely say the practice is
common to the U.S. military in Vietnam."
Marshall says he has yet to "treat a pa­tient
who says he is the only man in his
unit on the stuff."
Hard drugs in Vietnam seem especially
hazardous because they are almost "pure,"
and may be the primary cause for a re­cent
rash of Army drug overdoses and
deaths.
II" Review on Knowles' "The Paragon,"
p. 2
II" At the Hop, featuring rock quiz, p. 2
II" Sketch of Don Anderson, p. 3
II" Coal and politics, Apollo 14, p. 4
II" Interview with Mort Crim, p. 5
II" Conference size-up, p. 6
Jll' UL's Ken Bradley, p. 7
II" Schedule padding, p. 7
II" Nemo• Astro predicts, p. 8
Jll' Youth care services, p. 8
Return to V arykino
-Photo by Jebb Harris
Recent snowfall transformed this Indiana farm scene
into a portrait of pastoral peace.
Volunteers record hooks for blind
By HAL SANDERS
Cardinal Managing Editor
Although it has operated on campus
since early last March, the University of
Louisville's Recording for the Blind Unit
(RFB) in Room 111, Menges Hall, is still
little known to the campus community.
Its volunteers---25 readers, most of them
professors, and 12 monitors, usually stu­dents-
have produced 21 tape-recorded
textbooks for blind students during the
UL unit's existence, and can work on
7 to 10 books at once.
Each book is produced by a reader­monitor
team; the reader enters a sound­proof
booth to read the book, and the
monitor checks him, using a second copy
of the book and works the two-track tape
recorder.
If the reader makes a mistake, the
monitor stops him, tells him what it is,
and re-records the correct version; a
single "beep" tone isl recorded after each
page and a double "beep" at the end of
each chapter.
According to Dr. Emerson Foulke of the
Psychology Department, the value of UL's
unit is not its size-it has only two booths
-but the ability of its faculty volunteers
to read highly technical or foreign lan­guage
texts that would be difficult or im­possible
for the Masonic Home or
Anchorage units.
To obtain a recorded book, a blind stu­dent
sends a request to a local RFB unit
or to its national headquarters in New
York.
If the New York office doesn't have a
tape of the book in its library, it sends
two copies of the book to whatever unit
can best handle it as indicated by the
status reports each unit is required to
send to New York monthly.
When a tape is completed by one of
th~ three local units, it is sent to the
Masonic Home and duplicated. One copy
is sent immediately to the student and the
other to the New York office, where it is
duplicated again on four-track tape for
library storage.
Harriet Robertson, UL unit director
since last September, emphasized that
more volunteers are needed for UL's unit.
Only two hours are needed to train new
monitors in the operation of the tape
equipment.
All readers, however, must take a read­ing
audition that is sent to-the New York
headquarters for approval. There is a
general audition for humanities and basic
social sciences, and special auditions for
biology, .mathematics, physics, and foreign
languages.
All prospective volunteers should call
the campus RFB unit at 636-4580 or come
to Room 111, Menges Hall, from 8:30 a.m.
to 2:30 p.m. weekdays.