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Most offenders are teenagers
THE BATTALION Page
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1978
Drug sales a ‘cottage industry’
BUDGET
“What do you think about selling
Black people death?”
“If I didn’t do it, somebody else
would.
Tony Batten, executive producer-
host of the new public television
series “F.Y.I. (For Your Informa
tion),” quotes this exchange with
a teenage drug salesman in New
York City. Batten spent a week in
October filming in New York for the
second “F.Y.I.” special, “Drugs in
America,” airing nationally over PBS
Wednesday. In Bryan-College Sta
tion it will be shown at 7 p.m. on
KAMU-TV, channel 15.
The WETA-WAshington, D C.
producer came away with the convic-
that “We are losing the war against
narcotics and that only federal
interventions can possibly check the
spread of drug-related devastation.
Where once the drug traffic may
have been centrally controlled by
organized crime, Batten said, those
days are past. “Now what’s happen
ing is much more scary — There is no
control of herion importation.
People from poor communities are
making their own kinds of connec
tions. Narcotics trafficking has be
come a kind of cottage industry . ”
Moreover, he predicts the spread
of the epidemic from poor Black
communities to middle class white
neighborhoods. At an open-air drug
market in Harlem, the "F.Y.I.’’crew
saw purchases made from cars with
New Jersey license plates.
In an area of Harlem that he de
scribed as looking “bombed-out. . .
like Hamburg in 1949,” Batten was
surrounded by people attracted by
his film apparatus. Once they were
convinced that the “F.Y.I.” crew was
no threat to them, they began to talk.
“What they asked for mostly was
jobs,” Batten said. They talked about
lack of education and lack of housing.
“But more importantly what they
talked about was the fact that this
kind of condition wouldn’t exist if the
federal government really took a
stand and said, “Hey, we need these
people; these people are available to
us and we ought to try to save them. ”
But only an all out effort to dry up
drug supplies at the source can be
effective, Batten believes — perhaps
something similar to Nixon’s pay
ments to Turkey to stop growing
opium. But by the time drugs reach
the streets of Harlem, he says, the
effort to stamp out sales is almost
hopeless.
“I saw dozens and dozens of
people involved in drug trafficking
while uniformed policemen, some
times three or four at a time, stood on
a corner and did nothing. . . Low-
level street traffic just goes on un
bothered.’’
Young teenagers — 12, 13, 14
years old — know that “even if they
get busted, the cost-effectiveness of
a year in jail for them, if they’re mak
ing $5,000 or $6,000 a week, is no
thing. They can do a year in jail on
their heads — and get back out and
go back into the business,” he said.
& RECo^
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Are we losing the war against narcotics? A television show on
KAMU-TV, Channel 15, tonight at 7 will take a close look at
the use and abuse of drugs in America. Courtesy photo
ERIC CLAPTON
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Sadat seeks deadlock end
United Press International
President Anwar Sadat is sending his prime minister to Washington
with a letter to President Carter in an attempt to break the peace talks
deadlock.
An Israeli newspaper speculated that a U.S. request for economic
growth forecasts on the West Bank was in preparation to give aid to
what could be a Palestinian entity. The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv
called the report nonsense.
Syrian authorities have ordered a ban on trade with Egypt as part of
the measures ordered at last month’s Baghdad summit to counter
Sadat’s initiative with Israel, the newspaper Al Thawra said Tuesday in
Damascus.
U.S. officials in Washington said Sadat’s letter will allow the dead
locked Egyptian-Israeli peace talks to resume by the weekend.
In Cairo, Sadat, forging ahead with development plans, issued a
decree Tuesday dividing the Sinai desert into two zones and appoint
ing two army generals to run the areas. Egypt will get the Sinai back as
part of the treaty with Israel.
The division of Sinai into two administrative zones is part of govern
ment efforts to devote greater attention to the greening and exploita-
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tion of the desert after the Israeli pullout.
The appointments of the two generals were part of a reshuffle of
provincial governors. Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hussein Shawkat was
appointed governor of northern Sinai and Maj. Gen. Farid Ezzat
Wahba of southern Sinai.
In Tel Aviv, a request by the U.S. Embassy for economic growth
forecasts in Israeli occupied territories up to 1990 touched off specula
tion by the paper Yedioth Ahronoth that the information was to be used
for granting aid to the region when it becomes autonomous.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman called it “nonsense.
Israeli observers said the speculation was part of the fears about what
peace with Egypt would bring — a theme tbat Defense Minister Ezer
Weizman had touched on in explaining Israeli touchiness over every
new development.
In Jerusalem, government sources said Tuesday Israel was also
worried about Egypt’s support of a U.N. resolution calling for an arms
embargo against the Jewish state.
“This is not in the spirit of the Camp David accords but we haven t
signed anything with Egypt yet,” one source said.
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Clements claims Carter in trouble
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United Press International
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. —
Governor-elect Bill Clements, the
first Republican to be elected gover
nor of Texas in a century, says Presi
dent Carter is in trouble in Texas and
ready to be upset.
Clements, in Virginia for the Re
publican Governors Association
winter meeting, told a news confer
ence Monday there are a couple of
Republicans from his home state
who would measure up to the task —
former governor John Connally and
former CIA chief George Bush.
“The President only has a 26 per
cent favorability rating in my state,”
Clements said. “He was in trouble
before I was elected — and he’s in
more trouble now.”
Other Republican possibilities are
former President Gerald Ford and
former California governor Ronald
Reagan, he said.
“All four men were active in my
campaign, so I won’t say which I
would prefer,” Clements said. “I’m
on the horns of four dilemmas. ”
Asked which candidate would be
most likely to win, Clements said, “I
didn’t come a 11 the way to
Williamsburg to put my foot in my
mouth. I ve carefully avoided that
question in Texas.
A wealthy industrialist who once
worked the oil fields as a roughneck,
Clements, 61, broke the Democratic
stronghold on Texas’ statehouse
Nov. 7 by defeating state Attorney
General John Hill.
Denying that he bought the elec
tion by spending $6 million on the
race, Clements said Texas is so large
that any political newcomer must
spend huge sums to win name rec
ognition.
“It’s just not possible to do it any
other way. We had to cover 17 dif
ferent media markets in our giant
state, he said.
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Clements, refusing to rule out his
own candidacy as a favorite son in the
1980 presidential election, said he
would be busy learning the ropes as
governor.
“I have my work cut out for me just
doing my own knitting,” he said.
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