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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 2000)
TUESDAY September 26, 2000 Volume 107 ~ Issue 23 2 Sections A 8 pages B 6 pages i *1: wii'l AI =Kfi Wfif ••I iV HU 1^4; Ml H past weekend. Lion conference 8 percent of the pi 1 ! x it there by law ic fifth anti-immi > fail since 1970,11 bowed that coned >ng a significant what the plan's bn. mass immigration emely happy with " said Justice Mini- t. adding that itef icrs “would no/ thing for ourMiPi- alts showedfelpE s — 1.33 million^ against the “infe it ion of immigralictj ipported by 75hl i.3 percent. Nonfj ns, or states, void l measure. Natioj it was 43.4 percfj re for Switzerlw lakers who launcll five years ago,inir| d the country suftj imported labor w use in foreign r| ployment is now! ; lowest in morel nment, industry! kers s;iid the cap! hi Id lock out expffj as health andiaij hnology, daiii| ! ' Timine Switzerlw tradition andtaraf lal iniitge. STUART VILLANUEVA T ut: Battauon Investigators inspect the wreckage of a single-engine, two- Monday morning. The crash killed two peolple. The plane seater .plane that crashed in a pasture near Milican early took off from Sugarland, Texas. Cessna plane crashes, killing those on board 2 die when aircraft fails to reach Arlington, Texas By Brady Creel ; The Battalion Two people died Monday morning when the airplane they were flying crashed south of College Station. One of the victims was identifed as Joseph Riemi Putter, and the other victim, a Hispanic man, remains unidentified. Both men were middle-age. The Cessna 142 single-engine airplane crashed in an open pasture about six miles south of the College Station city limits near Highway 6. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokeswoman Tela Mange said in vestigators have not yet determined a cause. The investigation may take several weeks. Sgt. Jim Mann of the Brazos County Sheriff's office said the office received a call at approximately 2:30 a.m. Monday report ing a possible airplane crash. Mann said authorities believed the phone call came from air traffic controllers in Houston who had lost communication with the aircraft at 1:38 a.m., but it was possible the call came from Easterwood Airport. “Some airport was in contact and lost communications,” he said. Mann said sheriff’s deputies searched county roads immediately after the report, but were unable to perform an effective search because of the stormy weather conditions. The search resumed at 7:30 a.m., and the wreckage was found one hour later. A DPS helicopter equipped with a searchlight was used before daybreak, but nothing could be found until after sunrise. The victims were students of the Airline Training Academy at Arlington, said Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk. Mann said the plane flew to Sugarland from Arlington and was on its way back when poor weather conditions forced the plane to land temporarily at Easterwood Airport. Mann said the geography of the area the plane crashed in was “typical of southern Brazos County.” He said the crash site was far from any residential areas — the only house around was a small farmhouse sever al hundred yards from the site. “The only people in danger were those in the aircraft,” Mann said. “No one saw or heard anything.” The farmhouse residents did not hear the crash because of the stormy weather and the small size of the airplane. The crash left a trail of wreckage in a north-south general direction from the point of impact. “Everything was thrown pretty much in a line,” Mann said. The bodies of the victims were found just beyond the wreckage, Mann said. The plane did not catch on fire — it was just a “broken aircraft,” he said. The victims were two of a group of four See Crash on Page 7A. Corps study habits re-evaluated \Academic Operations Committee suggestions will take time to implement |By Courtney Stelzel The Battalion Changes in the scholastic policy of the Corps of Cadets, in re- ! sponse to an Aug. 29 forum among the Academic Operations I Committee (AOC), the Corps unit commanders and their scholas- [ tic personnel, may be slow and minimal. The meeting opened up a line of discussion, comments and suggestions for the way study j time is handled in the Corps. However, suggestions that were ! made have yet to result in change. Philip Carson, Corps scholastic officer and a senior econom ics major, said the idea for a meeting between the AOC and the Corps came last spring. “The Corps wanted to get their opinions and suggestions on | how we run our study program,” Carson said. The Corps has invited the associate deans from each college, ! one by one, to observe and walk through the Corps residence halls during Call to Quarters (CQ). “We hope to dispel any negative connotations,” Carson said, “that the AOC deans might have about the Corps and their study D NAV* Ifc'? ; i . f STUART VILLANUEVA/I n p. Battalion See Corps on Page 7A. Clay Jacobson, a freshman history major in company G-1, hits the books. Hemp activists demonstrate at Olsen Field By Courtney Stelzel The Battalion Hemp, weed, boo, marijuana, grass, Mary Jane, cannabis and mooch are all names associated with the illegal plant scientifically known as pistillate hemp, or Cannabis sativa, and it might be coming to a drug store near you, if a na tional group gets its wish. Journey for Justice campaigned in the Bryan-College Station area Mon day for support of its initiative to le galize marijuana for medical use, bring attention to the issue of for political de bate and reduce the incarceration rate of nonviolent drug-related convicts. The group, en route to Austin where the members plan to march on the Capitol and present their case to the press, is composed of people who were con victed of marijuana use and possession, medical marijuana patients and citizens concerned about the issue. They made a political state ment at Olsen Field by placing someone in a cage to represent the injustice of convicting and imprisoning nonviolent people for marijuana possession. Joe Ptak, a member of Journey for Justice, said the group is campaigning on the Texas A&M campus because of its extensive agricultural re search facilities and large stu dent population. “Both of these factors can help to raise awareness with the possible commercial uses of marijuana,” he said. The group’s goal is to en courage the agriculture depart ment to find a way to extract THC (tetrahydrolannabinol), the illegal component in mari juana, to make it less harmful and more productive for con sumer purposes. Hemp, the fiber produced from Cannabis sativa, can be used to produce clothing, paper, hair care prod ucts, and fuel, and for nutri tional purposes, in addition to other uses. Dr. Dennis Reardon, senior coordi nator for alcohol and drug programs for the Department of Student Life, said extensive marijuana use can have many of the same side effects as alco hol use and the legal consequences are just as severe. “Physicians should be allowed to use any sub stance proven in controlled studies to help with ailing pa tients and, whether that is marijuaSa or not, it doesn’t mat ter,” he said. ^ « However, ReJ|| don said in a survey of the A&M student body last year, only 7.4 percent of A&M students admitted to using the illegal substance within the last 30 days. Sixteen percent of students from other colleges around the 'country admitted to using it. Sgt. Dan Jones, public relations of ficer for the College Station Police De partment (CSPD) and a former mem ber of the Brazos Valley Narcotics Task Force, said marijuana contains more than 420 chemicals, and that 63 of them are considered mind-altering when heated. Therefore, he said all the side effects have yet to be discovered. However Judy Jones, program coor dinator for Journey to Justice, said that regardless of the misconceptions about the use of marijuana, the drug serves yn important purpose for those with med ical needs. “We go out in a bold way and tell people we have patients on board that will die without marijuana and this gets our points across,” she said. Jones added that Texas is the No. 1 incarcerator in the United States for marijuana use. “If Texas was a country it would be the No. 1 country for incarcerations,” Jones said. Journey for Justice concluded its campaign at A&M with a two-hour open RYLA SKULL/The Battalion Advocates for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes rallied at Olsen Field Monday. forum at the Koldus Building that in cluded speeches and skits. For more information on Journey for Justice and its campaign visit www.journeyforjustice.com. CSPD officers host education pro grams in the community to deter resi dents from early-age drug use, such as the national Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) pro grams, a nation wide lecture that aims to educate ele mentary-school stu dents. Speakers from the Narcotics Task Force speak at various events throughout the community, hoping to educate the pub lic about the harms, 'effects and legal consequences of marijuana use. Drug possession is illegal according to current law, and people in an effort to prevent drug use Physicians should he allowed to use any sub stance proven in controlled studies to help with ailing patients and, whether that is marijuana or not, it doesn't matter” — Dr. Dennis Reardon senior coordinator for alcohol and drug programs for the ' 9 Department of Student Life convicted of marijuana possession can receive fines of up to $4,000 and one year in jail for 2 to 4 ounces, depend ing on the amount. ^ M 3 professors receive $1.2 million for technology research IByRich Bray . The Battalion \ A day in a person's life can equal | a month in the life of a computer and [fast-growing technology. In an at tempt to help researchers gain a stronger footing in this field, the Na tional Science Foundation (NSF) granted more than $1.2 million to three Texas A&M professors to en able them to continue their techno logical research. Richard Gibson, an associate pro fessor of geology and geophysics, was awarded $437,927; Richard Fu- ruta, an associate professor in the De partment of Computer Science, was awarded $498,207; and Wei Zhao, a professor and head of the Depart ment of Computer Science, was awarded $343,806. The money comes from a new NSF program that will award $90 million in grants for technological research in the United States, Gib son said. “It’s a new program called Infor mation Technology Research (ITR),” he said. “The key idea is to try to fund some new research in several differ ent areas. They’re looking for new kinds of software — things related to education programs, human-com puter interfaces, information man agement, advanced computational science and the social and economic implications of information technol ogy,” he said. Gibson said the program was cre ated to assist research in technologi cal advances. “It’s a fairly broad program, but with everyone talking about the In ternet and how computers are chang ing our lives, they wanted to sink some money into this area to make some big steps forward,” he said. Gibson said the grant money awarded to him will be used to de velop a program to speed up com puters used to find oil. “One of the most challenging See NSF on Page 4B.