At the MCSG Legislative Body meeting Oct. 16, the charter for Macalester College Against Drugs was denied by one vote.
The charter was denied by a 13-12 vote, though all members of the Executive Board, which includes the President, Vice President and the FAC, SSC and AAC chairs voted to approve it..
Israfil Khosru ’04 and Bibek Pandey ’04 initially proposed the new organization to create awareness of drug related issues within and outside the Macalester community. Their charter proposed organizing panel discussions, speakers, and a newsletter, to create a space for students and faculty to express these issues. Another component of the organization was to reach out to local schools to assist their fight against drugs through volunteer programs.
“Macalester is not specifically addressing these very important issues. We want to provide what is missing at Macalester,” Khosru said.
Khosru, from Bangladesh, and Pandey, from Nepal, started planning the organization at the beginning of the summer.
“I’ve seen the perils of drugs. Before coming to the United States, I was surrounded by it as a social problem.” Pandey said. “It is also an important issue here in the United States and there are implications throughout the world. We have an international perspective and we want to focus on drug policies at the local and global level.”
Khosru and Pandey’s goal was to raise diverse issues ranging from the different kinds of drugs on the market, patent issues, the war on drugs, and recovering drug-abusers not being applicable for financial aid in the U.S.
After the charter was presented to the Legislative Body, there were several minutes of discussion amongst the LB members.
“It may be the source of ridicule,” Poppy Coleman ’02 stated at the LB meeting. “Because they are intending to work with the Community Service Office, there may be no need for a new organization.”
“I don’t do drugs, I’m against drugs, but I was not going to vote for them because they did not seem prepared for an organization with such an ambitious agenda,” Jimica Dawson ’03 said.
LB members who supported the organization said that there was a lack of organizations dealing with these issues.
The name of the organization was a source of discussion. Members questioned the title’s significance and its intimidating and aggressive impression. The name is ambiguous and does not explicitly state what kind of drug issues it stands for.
Many LB members agreed that the collaboration with already existing school functions, such as the CSO and the Health Services, would be more reasonable than starting a new organization.
“We agree with what the LB suggested to us. We probably should have named our organization something like ‘Sensible Drug Policy.’” Khosru and Pandey both concurred. “This is not about making a new organization. We just want a way to create awareness. We have started working with existing organizations like they suggested, as well as the Sociology Club.”
There was some confusion because LB members did not know the criteria to use to judge whether an organization should receive a charter. The LB has convened only a few times before this Student Service Charter meeting. The majority of the LB members are new to the board and were unfamiliar with the chartering process.
For a new organization to receive a charter, certain criteria must be met. The organization must serve a unique purpose, there must be demonstrated interest, and it must be non-exclusive. According to the Executive Board, the charter met all criteria. LB members did not have a copy of these criteria.
“The Parliamentary Procedure is a necessary bureaucratic process for there’s no efficient alternative for decision making,” AAC Chair Haris Aqeel ’04 said. MCSG has appointed a new parliamentarian to sit at every LB meeting and a training session in the works for all executive and LB members to familiarize themselves with the processes.
LB members said that if the students were to propose the charter again after making suggested changes, it would pass.