Cops See Few College Buyers

A fear of low quality drugs and lack of knowledge of the city prevent Harvard students from buying drugs in Cambridge, according to city police officers.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Perry L. Anderson Jr. says that because of these concerns most college students get their drugs from within the college.

"I think kids in college know other kids who are buying and taking drugs," he says. "They have a definite network."

College students are afraid to venture out into Cambridge to buy drugs, says Detective Stephen Edwards of the vice and narcotics division. "They stay within the school out of fear and not knowing where to go to get drugs," he says.

The risk of being taken advantage of also leads Harvard students to buy from inside sources, Edwards says.

"Rather than taking a chance of getting ripped off and getting bad stuff, they stick to inside sources," he says.

Anderson says that Harvard students have good reason to fear buying drugs in the city.

"College students should be afraid of buying street drugs if they're not," he says. "They could get a strong dose of drugs that could kill them or at least require them to need medical assistance."

The problem of college students and drugs is not that serious in Cambridge, Anderson says.

"We haven't seen the surge of college students being involved in drugs here in Cambridge," he says. "I attribute this to the high level of standards forward by Harvard and MIT."