How a Residence for Formerly Substance-Abusing Students Helps Them Stay Sober As the first week of school wound down, Nick, 20, a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, was feeling pretty comfortable in his new digs, a still tidy five-bedroom, red clapboard house he shares with three other guys on the edge of campus. He didn't know any of them well when the semester began, but he knew they had a couple of things in common. All four are in various stages of recovery from substance abuse, and each is a charter member of Recovery House, a new residential program at Case designed to help students with drug and alcohol problems stay clean and sober. [continues 585 words]
Criminologist John Hagedorn of the University of Illinois at Chicago fully expected his new study on the inner-city drug trade would provoke debate. The main contention, based on extensive research in two poor Milwaukee neighborhoods, is that dealers should be regarded as "innovative" and "entrepreneurial" and that their "work" is driven by economics, not immorality. But Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has essentially put the kibosh on any substantive discussion of the professor's controversial ideas among city officials and policymakers by calling the report "twisted" and the product of "drug-addled minds." Though Hagedorn figured critics would try to label him as soft on crime, he was initially shocked by the ferocity of Norquist's attack. [continues 53 words]
