There is a time and place for everything... and that place is college.

The Princeton Review, the company behind many well known guides to colleges and the publisher of preparation books for college entrance exams, has released a list of the top 10 rated schools that are the most marijuana friendly. The say that these are the campuses where attitudes are the most relaxed when it comes to cannabis.

Now, the Princeton review has written guides for America’s top universities including titles like, “Guide to Colleges For Students With Learning Disabilities” and “Parents Guide to College life”, along with the “Complete Book of Colleges”  Here, in no particular order are the top ten most marijuana-friendly schools in the US according to the Princeton Review…

1. Colorado College - A private, four-year, co-educational, liberal arts and sciences college in Colorado Springs.
2. University of California – Santa Cruz
3. University of California – Santa Barbra
4. University of Colorado – Boulder
5. Bard College - Bard College, founded in 1860 is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
6. Lewis and Clark College - A four year private university in Portland, Oregon
7. Warren Wilson College - a private four-year college in the Swannanoa Valley, North Carolina, known for its curriculum of work, academics, and service, and requires every student to work an on-campus job, perform at least one hundred hours of community service over four years in order to graduate.
8. Eckerd College – a private 4-year coeducational liberal arts college at the southernmost tip of St. Petersburg, Florida
9. New College of Florida - a public liberal arts college located in Sarasota, Florida
10. University of Vemont  a public research university in Burlington

So, now we know that these are the most marijuana friendly schools, what the report didn’t say was if this was a good reputation or a bad one, like your college preference, I guess it is all perspective.

(NOLA.com) State Judge Raymond S. Childress punished [Cornel] Hood [II] under Louisiana’s repeat-offender law in his courtroom in Covington on Thursday. A jury on Feb. 15 found the defendant guilty of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana at his Slidell home, court records show.

Hood moved from eastern New Orleans to the Slidell area after he admitted to separate charges of distribution of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana on Dec. 18, 2009, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He received a suspended five-year prison sentence and five years’ of probation for each — which was precisely the same penalty he got in that court after pleading guilty to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana on Feb. 22, 2005.

[Hood's probation officer] found nearly two pounds of pot throughout the house, according to court records. He alerted Sheriff’s Office deputies. They arrested Hood, who apparently shared the King’s Point house with his mother and young son.

At Hood’s one-day trial, the evidence presented by the prosecution included a digital scale and about a dozen bags that had contained marijuana before being seized from the house, testimony showed. Deputies also found $1,600 in cash and a student-loan application with Hood’s name on it inside of a night stand.

The judge in this case cited the fact that Hood had been busted three times before and was apparently an unrepentant marijuana dealer who would never change.  The judge said that everybody is bound by the law and Hood clearly didn’t respect the law.

So judge, did you ever stop to think that the law isn’t deserving of respect?  He was packaging and distributing a non-toxic flower that willing customers chose to purchase and consume.  Could that entrepreneurship have been put to good use in a legal framework?  Instead of a prisoner at age 35 who is going to cost Louisiana taxpayers $13,000 / year, you could have had “Cornel’s Hood o’ Hemp”, a legit business contributing jobs and taxes and economic revitalization.

If Cornel lives to age 74, Louisiana will spend over a half-million dollars keeping him in prison.  Meanwhile, distribution of marijuana in Louisiana will continue unabated.  Sadly, it looks like Cornell was trying to get a student loan; who knows, maybe he was trying to start his life over, get an education, and start a new career.  For half a million bucks, we could give 21 students four years of education at Louisiana State University.

NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano

Why Students Hold The Key To Ending Marijuana Prohibition

By Paul Armentano

Deputy Director

NORML | NORML Foundation

Presented:

March 12, 2010

SSDP 11th Annual Conference

San Francisco, CA

My name is Paul Armentano and I’m the Deputy Director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and I’m the co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? Max, Amber, Stacia and the many good folks at SSDP invited me to come here today to talk to you about why students have a vital role to play in ending marijuana prohibition.

The reasons are several, but the first ought to be obvious: self-preservation.

Since 1965 law enforcement in this country have arrested over 20 million people for marijuana offenses.  But when you take a closer look at who is actually arrested you find that, for the most part, it isn’t the folks sitting on this panel who are getting busted; it’s all of you sitting out there – it’s young people.

In short – the so-called ‘war’ on marijuana is really a war on youth.

According to a 2005 study commissioned by the NORML Foundation, 74 percent of the 800,000 or so Americans arrested for pot offenses each year are under age 30, and one out of four are age 18 or younger.  That’s nearly half a million young people at risk of losing their school loans, or being saddled with a lifelong criminal record at a time when they are just entering the workforce.   We’re talking about an entire generation – and that’s guys out there — that has been alienated to believe that the police and their civic leaders are instruments of their oppression rather than their protection.

And the sad fact is: you’re right!

The question is: What are you going to do about it?

If we’re going to finally end this 70+ year failed public policy known as marijuana prohibition, then we need students to play a lead role.  Obviously those of you in this room have already taken a critical first step in leading this charge by being a part of  SSDP and by attending this conference.  But there’s a lot more to be done and there’s a lot more that you can do.

I believe that it was Ghandi who said that those who are oppressed must stand up and be a part of there own liberation, and marijuana prohibition is no different.  Look around you because it’s you all who will ultimately bring about an end to prohibition.

And here’s how you start the process, and it’s really, really simple suggestion. Start talking to others about the need to end marijuana prohibition. Start talking about how this policy disproportionately and adversely impacts youth. Start talking about how this policy limits young people’s opportunities at economic and academic success, and has repercussions that adversely affect people for the rest of their lives.

Start talking about how prohibition endangers young people’s health and safety because it enables teens to have easier access to pot than to legal, age-restricted intoxicants like alcohol and tobacco.  Talk about how prohibition forces young people to interact and befriend pushers of other illegal, more dangerous drugs.  Talk about how prohibition compels young people dismiss the educational messages they receive about the health risks posed by the use of ‘hard drugs’ and prescription pharmaceuticals because they say: “If they lied to me about pot, why wouldn’t they be lying to me about everything else too.”

Most importantly, talk about how criminal prohibition is far more likely to result in having all of you sitting in this room struggling to get over a lifelong criminal conviction than it is in any way going to discourage you or your friends  from trying pot.

And when I say ‘talk about it,’ that’s exactly what I mean – TALK.  But here’s the thing: be aware of who you are talking to.  Talk to those who know you – your family, your friends, your parents, your neighbors, your professors, your faculty advisors. These are the people who you have built in credibility with.  These are the people who are most likely to share and act upon your concerns because they care about you.  They care about what you think, and they actually give a shit about what happens to you.

(You know it’s funny, so often I hear activists talk about how they want to spread the word by going out on some street-corner and handing out leaflets to strangers. Or they want to engage in debates with some paid prohibitionist, as if by providing he or she with the facts about marijuana will somehow change his or her position. Or they want to post messages on some anti-drug website. Big deal. Talking to strangers is easy – it’s talking to people you know that’s hard. But it’s talking to people you know that is ultimately going to make a difference.)

So after your done talking about the evils of the drug war with your friends, family, and faculty – and encouraging them to begin engaging in this conversation with their friends as well – then it’s time to move the discussion to those who can shape public opinion and policy: the editors at your school paper, the leaders in your student government, your city council, your mayor, you state elected officials.  Talk to these folks, and keep talking to these folks.  And if they won’t listen to you – then become one of them.  Join the school paper; run for student government; run for city council. If not you, then who?

Here’s something else I want you to do to help bring about an end to marijuana prohibition. There’s something I want you all to say when you are engaging in your outreach efforts, and that is this: NOT IN MY NAME.

You know, when those who support marijuana prohibition are forced to defend it, they do so by saying that it’s all about you – it’s all about protecting and providing for the best interest of young people.  You know, sort of like “we have to destroy the village in order to to save it.”

It’s time for all of you in this room to stop being the scapegoats for the abuses and the excesses of drug war. It’s time to say – enough! We don’t want your criminal policies; we never asked for your criminal policies; and we’re tired of having our good names be used to support your failed drug war.  The war on marijuana isn’t saving us; it’s harming us – and we demand that it comes to end before it fucks over another generations the same way it’s fucked over ours.

Okay, so that’s the easy part – here’s the hard part.  If students – and I’m talking about you guys here, and I’m also talking about all of your friends and colleagues who aren’t here – are ultimately going to be the game-changers in this battle, this fight that all of us sitting up here have been waging for far too long already, then we need for you guys to take a pledge.  Now I know there’s probably nobody in this room right now who is straight-edge, but within that community there’s a saying. It goes: “True till death, not till college.’ The idea behind that saying is that it’s really easy to pledge to be abstinent when you’re young, but that it gets harder and harder as you get holder.

Well, believe it or not, the opposite applies too.

You know, I knew lots of people who delved into marijuana activism while they were in college, but after college things suddenly changed.  “Well you know, I’d love to be active but now I’m worried that my boyfriend/girlfriend/parents won’t approve. Well, I’d love to join NORML but I’m worried that my employer might find out. I’d love to be active in a NORML chapter but I just don’t have the free time like I used to have. Well, I’d love to fight to end marijuana prohibition but now that I’ve graduated college I have to pay back my school loans and I have to join some scum-sucking corporate conglomerate, put on a suit and tie, and never so much as mention marijuana law reform ever again.”

Well, let me tell you – the reality has changed, and the time for excuses – and believe me, I’ve heard them all – is over.

When I graduated college in 1994 there was no SSDP; there was no ASA. There barely was an MPP – which at the time was Rob Kampia and Chuck Thomas operating out of their apartment. There was the DPA – with one office a handful of employees.  There was no LEAP, no SAFER; no frankly there was no professional movement. Since then the landscape has changed monumentally.

Today, there are now dozens of organizations working on drug policy reform, and with that, there are now dozens of job opportunities for you to get involved and stay involved in marijuana law reform after you graduate.  So I present you with a challenge: You really want to end the drug war? Consider making drug policy your career choice.  You can start right now by applying for an internship at NORML or a fellowship at SSDP.  Many of this movement’s current leaders started out this way, Kris Krane, Mason Tvert, Tom Angel, Stacia Cosner, Micah Daigle, to name a few.  They did it, and you can too.

Finally, even if you don’t wish to pursue marijuana law reform as a career, I encourage you to stay active in this movement. Between the Internet, podcasts, list-servs, social networking sites like Facebook, you now have access to unparalleled quantities of drug-law reform information in real time.  Hell, just this past week NORML launched its own Iphone app.

In other words, it is now easier than ever to stay plugged in to your networks and continue to educate yourself and your friends about drug policy reform. Check out NORML’s daily podcast, the Audio Stash, for the latest breaking news, or check out NORML or MPP’s capwiz page to instantly learn about upcoming state and federal votes regarding legislation that affects us all. And use what you learn to continue to move this conversation forward. The bottom line: All of you in this room have the power to change these laws, and today you have an unprecedented opportunity to do so. So get out there and do it!

University of Central Florida NORML, one of the nation's premiere campus NORML chapters

Do you attend a college or university that doesn’t have a NORML Chapter?  Would you like to start one?  Send me an email at stash@norml.org and check the menu at the top that says “NORML Chapters” and you’ll learn all you need to know.

You could make a difference on your campus like the brand new CSU Fresno chapter:

(CSU Fresno Collegian) “Our primary goal is to spread correct information about marijuana and hemp to the students of Fresno State,” said 20-year-old [CSU Fresno NORML] president Idell Tarver. “We also promote the organizations goals of [medicinal marijuana] use, industrial use and recreational use.”

According to their Web site, the club wants to create limitations for marijuana and hemp being that only adults can use it. Those who use it would not be able to drive after using, limits would be set, resist abuse, and they would have to respect the rights of others.

“In the upcoming weeks, we are having discussions of various topics relating to marijuana, our symposium series,” Tarver said.

The club also has a debate scheduled with a narcotics officer that they hope will happen on April 20 in the Free Speech Area.

The club is also getting involved with the community and plans to adopt a stretch of highway.

“We hope to adopt the two-mile stretch of [highway] 168 that runs westbound from the Bullard overpass. We would be cleaning that section of the highway once a month,” Tarver said. “This is a good opportunity to get the students of N.O.R.M.L to get involved with the community.”

N.O.R.M.L is open to any new members, and meetings are held at 5 p.m. on Wednesdays in Family Food and Sciences 216a.

This is from a brilliant op-ed by the dean of the California State University system:

(SF Gate) During the budget debate, it became clear to me that something unthinkable has happened in California: Our fiscal meltdown has so distorted our legislative priorities that we are now a state that places a higher priority on prison than on higher education.

Last week, at the same time that the California State University’s Board of Trustees was approving drastic measures to manage unprecedented budget cuts, a tentative budget deal in the Legislature was unraveling because of outrage over cuts to California’s prison budget. How could the message to California students have been any clearer? You can cut higher education to the bone and you won’t hear a single statement of remorse from the Legislature, but start cutting into the prison budget and you’ll hear howls of protest from the Capitol.

It costs $49,000 per year to keep a prisoner behind bars in California. However, the state’s contribution per student at the CSU is just $4,600. This dichotomy is not just outrageous, it’s tragic. For such a relatively small amount of money, a young person could get a good education, secure a meaningful job and become a contributing member to the community and the economy. But instead of preserving this small investment in our young people, our leaders would rather spend 10 times as much to keep prisoners behind bars.

Wow!  I just received a fax from McGraw Hill, the people who make college textbooks, among other publishing.  They happened on a piece I wrote for The Oregon Herald on 4/20/2005 (just two weeks before I met Madeline Martinez and started my career in marijuana law reform) entitled “Drug Testing Does No Good” and are asking my permission to reprint it in a college textbook entitled “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Management” that will be published in August.  Yours truly even receives a fee!  For something I wrote and forgot about four years ago!  (Ain’t the intertubes wonderful?)

Here it is for your reading pleasure…

Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.

What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You’d be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.

The methods of drug testing have evolved over the past decade. Once, businesses, schools, and government could only test a person’s urine. These tests are so easily defeated that the tests only detect whether you’re too dumb to fool the test. But new methods of testing the blood, saliva, and hair have made fooling a drug test much harder.

With the urine test, evidence of past use of cocaine, amphetamines, and other hard drugs can be detected for up to 48 hours after use. Thus, a worker testing positive for these drugs could have ingested these substances on a Friday evening and be completely sober for work on Monday. Likewise, a person seeking a new job need only abstain from these substances for three days.

Ironically, the one drug with the lowest potential for abuse and harm, marijuana, remains detectable in a person’s urine for 14 to 45 days. It is odd to consider that for two employees passing a urine test, one may have been abstaining from smoking pot all of last month while the other may have been smoking crack all of last month up until three days ago.

The newer testing does a better job of detecting drug use; some tests can indicate the use of any illicit substance for up to three months prior to the test. However, all that means is that problem drug users who wish to go straight and re-enter the workforce have a longer wait before they can apply for work. Without gainful employment, how much harder is it for a recovering addict to stay sober?

There must be a good reason for American businesses spending up to $1 billion dollars per year on drug testing. One of the usual reasons for this expenditure is workforce productivity.

However, when independent researchers analyzed the statistics on drug testing and productivity, they found some surprising results. According to The Committee on Drug Use in the Workplace (CDUW) assembled by the government’s own National Institute of Drug Abuse, “The empirical results suggest that drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity. Surprisingly, companies adopting drug testing programs are found to exhibit lower levels of productivity than their counterparts that do not.”

How could a company actually lose productivity by drug testing workers? CDUW suggests four possible reasons:

1) Drug testing is expensive. Tests cost around $50 per worker. A congressional committee estimated that the cost of each positive result in government testing was $77,000 because the positive rate was only 0.5%. Then there’s the costs of administration, medical review, follow-up tests for positive results, treatment or discipline for the worker, or searching, hiring, and training a new worker.

2) Drug testing lowers employee morale. An overwhelming majority of workers find drug testing to be an invasion of privacy. They consider drug testing unfair when it is only detecting prior use, not current impairment. They find it profoundly unfair that these tests do not consider the abuse of alcohol, which is a more significant factor in workplace safety and productivity. The lowered morale causes employees to show less loyalty to a company, not work as hard, and good workers may seek other jobs with non-drug testing firms.

3) Drug use may actually increase productivity for some people. The CDUW found that moderate use of drugs or alcohol had either a positive effect or no effect on worker productivity. Numerous studies have found that moderate marijuana use actually increased productivity. Furthermore, marijuana users who are treating pain, cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines, or even depression are much more productive than they would be without treatment.

4) Drug testing may lead marijuana smokers (by far the largest segment of the drug using population) to using harder drugs. Since most workplaces still choose the cheaper urine testing over the other tests, marijuana smokers may instead use harder drugs or alcohol, all of which are flushed quickly from the system. Marijuana’s low addictiveness allows a casual user to remain healthy and productive, while the high addictiveness of the harder drugs make it more likely for the person to slip from casual use to the severe abuse that causes the illness, absenteeism, safety risks, and low productivity the drug tests were meant to alleviate in the first place.

Another excuse offered for drug testing is workplace safety. We don’t want to have drug-impaired workers operating heavy machinery, public transportation, or any other industry where safety is of paramount concern. Of course, this reasoning falls flat when we recall that drug testing does not detect impairment. But perhaps one could assume that someone who has used drugs in the past may be more likely to use them on the job and endanger fellow employees and the public.

Unfortunately, the data do not support that assumption. Many companies have used some form of impairment testing, a system that does not test for drugs, but rather hand-eye coordination, concentration, and reaction times. Those companies that have used these systems have found that severe fatigue and illness, not drug or alcohol use, are the most common causes of workplace accidents.

One added advantage of these tests is that they do reduce the level of workplace accidents. Workers are much more accepting of impairment tests, as they do not violate privacy and are perceived to be fairer than drug testing. Plus, the impairment tests are much cheaper to administer and they actually detect the problem that drug testing does not — worker impairment.

The final nail in the coffin of any workplace drug testing argument is the fact that casual drug users (once per week or less) are just as likely to find employment and hold down a job as their non-drug using counterparts. Our drug testing regime has not kept casual drug users out of the workplace at all, and those users are not adversely affecting productivity, safety, or their own career goals.

Businesses and government aren’t the only entities routinely testing for drugs. Our schools are now testing our children for evidence of illicit drug use. In a series of controversial rulings, the Supreme Court has steadily added to the number of our children being drug tested.

First they allowed students to be tested for cause; if a student was suspected of using or possessing drugs on campus, he or she could be tested. Next they ruled that students involved with extracurricular athletics could be tested randomly, citing the need for safety in potentially dangerous sports activities.

Most recently, the justices have decided that students in any extracurricular activity, from band to chess club, could be tested randomly. Justice Clarence Thomas expressed the opinion of the slim 5-4 majority stating that children involved in after-school activities voluntarily give up some of their rights to privacy.

Many of the same issues of safety and productivity are raised in support of drug testing students, and they are met with the same evidence found in the workplace: no significant differences in accidents or performance are found between schools that drug test and those that do not, nor between students who pass drug tests and those who fail.

However, with the student population there are other arguments that are stated: we need to send a message to students that drug use will not be tolerated and we need to provide incentives for students stop using drugs.

This argument also falls flat when confronted with the evidence. A federally-funded study in 2003 of over 76,000 students in almost 900 schools found no correlation between drug testing and student drug use. Kids were just as likely to use drugs at the drug testing schools as the non-drug testing schools.

Moreover, just as workplace drug testing has the unintended consequence of lowering morale and productivity, school drug testing has its unintended consequences. Kids who might be falling in with the wrong crowd are discouraged from joining the after-school sports or clubs that would provide a healthier environment. Kids already enrolled in extra-curricular activities must sacrifice their privacy and discover that their word and their achievements are not trusted.

Of course, like workplace drug testing, there’s the added expense of operating such a program, a cost that weighs heavily against chronically insufficient school budgets. The cost of one positive drug test result could have bought new instruments for the band, computers for the classroom, or equipment for the team.

Further compounding the futility of all drug testing is the fact that there is no perfect drug test. Every test gives a significant amount of false-positives and false-negatives. Many common over-the-counter medications can show up as an illicit drug. Cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine may be detected as amphetamines (speed). Cold remedies with dextromethorphan can register positive for opiates (heroin). Naproxen/ibuprofen-based pain relievers give positives for cannabis (marijuana). Nasal sprays sometimes indicate for MDMA (ecstasy).

Even some common foods can cause a failed drug test. Poppy seeds that you ingest from muffins or bagels can register as heroin. Large amounts of riboflavin (vitamin B-2) and perfectly legal (and incredibly healthy) hemp seed oil can register as marijuana.

Then of course there are many prescription drugs that can lead to a false positive. Amoxicillin, the antibiotic most prescribed for those allergic to penicillin, can show up as cocaine. Many asthma medications register as ecstasy or amphetamines. Even in the absence of these pharmaceuticals, some medical conditions can register a false positive. Kidney infection, liver disease, and diabetes can all lead to false positives for cocaine, ecstasy, opiates, or amphetamines.

Worst of all, you may fail a drug test through no fault of your own. A small fraction of people excrete larger amounts of certain enzymes in their urine that may produce a false positive. One researcher hypothesizes that the higher levels of melanin (the pigment producing cell) found in darker-skinned people may lead to positives for marijuana, because melanin and THC metabolites share a similar molecular structure.

For every false positive there is a person who has suffered the indignity of the accusation, the suspicion of family, co-workers, and friends, the threat of job loss or school suspension, and the burden of proving themselves innocent of a crime they did not commit. For every false negative there is the time, money, and effort wasted failing to discover someone who is actually using drugs.

But beyond the obvious futility and waste involved, there is one superseding argument against drug testing: it is un-American.

Our Founding Fathers laid out our basic liberties in the Bill of Rights. Drug testing violates at least two of our most sacred liberties.

Our 5th Amendment lays out two basic legal concepts: that we cannot be compelled to testify against ourselves and that we are innocent until proven guilty. Drug testing assumes that you are guilty until your body proves you to be innocent. Being compelled to provide urine, hair, saliva, or blood is a testimony against yourself. The Founders were clearly against compelling the citizenry toward self-incrimination; they had seen the results of tyrants using these techniques throughout history. It’s a shame our courts haven’t been as wise.

Our 4th Amendment is the basis for our right to privacy and freedom from government investigations and seizures without warrant and probable cause. Drug testing is certainly an invasion of privacy; it’s hard to imagine how a stranger watching you urinate isn’t an invasion of privacy. If there is no probable cause to believe you have committed a crime, there is no good reason to seize your bodily fluids.

Sadly, courts have decided that going to work or school is a voluntary activity, that you exchange some of your expectation to privacy in getting a job or an education, and that employers and educators are not the police or government. It’s hard for me to imagine how work or education is truly voluntary; I guess that homelessness and ignorance are a viable choice in their minds; a choice I think would lead to more drug abuse, not less.

For many people, there is no choice but to swallow their pride, surrender their rights, face the embarrassment, risk the false positive, and take the drug test. Almost half of all employers perform some sort of drug testing. The farther down the socio-economic scale, the more likely a worker will face a pre-employment drug test. Around 36% of financial, business, and professional services test their new hires, compared to more than three-fourths of manufacturing and more than 60% of wholesale, retail, and other services. Yet rates of illicit drug use remain fairly constant among all segments of society.

The cash-strapped schools are less likely to be testing for drugs. In 2003, some 19% of schools had drug testing for cause, only 5% tested student-athletes, and only 4% tested participants in all extra-curricular activities. But for the student at these schools, unlike the worker, attendance is compulsory and there aren’t many other options available. Their choices are to either avoid all extracurricular activities (which can be determining factors in college selection and future career) or suffer the same risks and indignities as their parents in the workforce.

Drug testing is but one of the many failures in our government’s war on casual drug users, and its failure to achieve its stated goals is one of the easiest to prove. Fortunately, many companies are coming to recognize this fact — rates of workplace and school drug testing have declined steadily since 1990. But there remains a federal government with a strong inclination toward abrogating the rights of citizens to look “tough on crime”, and many industries that stand to gain from increased drug testing.

Personally, I just try to imagine what possible argument could have convinced hemp farmers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to pee in a cup in order to get a job.

TO: All CU-Boulder Students
FROM: Office of the Chancellor
DATE: April 15, 2009
SUBJECT: A statement from the CU-Boulder leadership to CU Students on the 4-20 gathering

Dear Students:

As another April 20 approaches, we are faced with concerns from students, parents, alumni, Regents, and community members about a repeat of last year’s 4/20 “event.”

Let us start by saying that we share their concerns. A gathering of thousands on our campus for the sole purpose of engaging in unlawful activity is contrary to everything that CU-Boulder stands for and is in no way condoned. This event only serves to harm the reputation of this great university and is comprised in large part of individuals with no investment in the university at all.

The increasingly large crowds that have gathered in recent years present safety risks for participants, whether students or people not affiliated with the campus. This activity violates a number of campus regulations designed to provide for the well-being of our campus and neighboring community.

On April 20, 2009, we hope that you will choose not to participate in unlawful activity that debases the reputation of your University and degree, and will encourage your fellow Buffs to act with pride and remember who they really are — part of a dynamic environment of teaching, research, learning, and service, nationally recognized for its unique and stellar academic programs, outstanding faculty, and proud students and alumni.

Sincerely,

Phil DiStefano
Interim Chancellor

Julie Wong
Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs

Deb Coffin
Dean of Students

Well, we certainly don’t want students and those with “no investment in the university at all” to be gathered together in one large public space and taking drugs.  Think of the safety risks!  Think of all those young people under age 21 who are taking drugs! Who knows what this could turn in to?

Now to be fair, Colorado University no longer sells or allows alcohol at Folsom Field football games (for the cheap seats, see below) or Coors Event Center basketball games.  However, you and I both know that, especially for the football games, thousands are openly consuming alcohol in the parking lot “tailgate” parties.  Most of these alcohol paraphernalia are available at the student store to anyone of any age.  One day a year free-thinking Coloradoans are exhibiting civil disobedience in support of pot, but 365 days a year Colorado University is profitting from promoting alcohol use.

[2007's] decision [to end alcohol sales at Coors Events Center] means Fat Tire, Coors Light, Coors Original and locally brewed Buff Gold — which cost $5 to $6 per plastic cupful — are all off the menu. CU also banned beer sales at Folsom Field for football games 11 years ago, except for those sitting in luxury suites or club seats.

By the numbers: $5 million -What the Adolph Coors Foundation paid CU in 1990 to rename the CU Events/Conference Center to the Coors Events Center; $1.3 million -How much Coors Brewing Co. will pay CU to be an exclusive beer sponsor through 2011

“The event center at CU bears the Coors name because of generous family support, not a brand-marketing sponsorship,” said Coors spokeswoman Kabira Hatland. “Coors Brewing Co. has long supported universities in their ongoing efforts to prevent the abuse of alcohol on campus.”

…which we accomplish by marketing our brand through corporate naming rights of the stadium where the students go to support their basketball team and see rock concerts.  If there’s no marketing angle, why is it not the “Adolph Coors Center”, named after the man, instead of “Coors Center”, named after the beer?  If it is just “generous family support”, why not a $5,000,000 gift with no naming strings attached?

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said the decision to stop beer sales at the center will not affect a nearly $1.3 million sponsorship agreement between Coors and CU.

The agreement grants Coors the right to claim “exclusive malt beverage sponsorship of CU” through 2011, although it does not make Coors the sole provider of beer at CU events.

But it’s only about “generous family support”, so why the need to claim to be the exclusive sponsor of something that can’t be sold at the football and basketball games?  This makes me think there are other CU events where Coors and other beers are sold

(RedandBlack.com) A club that sold a T-shirt with the image of Hairy Dawg smoking marijuana and sitting by the Arch is in trouble because of the University’s logo policy.A member of the Georgia chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws drew the picture of the University mascot during the fall 2008 semester. The group put the image, drawn by sophomore Greg Stone, on 50 t-shirts and its Web site.

NORML President Wojciech Kacowski said his organization was contacted via e-mail on Feb. 11 by Megan Janasiewicz, a program adviser for the Center for Student Organizations. Janasiewicz instructed NORML to remove the image from its Web site and to stop distributing T-shirts, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black.

If NORML didn’t follow the University’s instructions, the group’s status as a student organization would be in question, the e-mail stated.

Later in the week, Janasiewicz sent Kacowski an e-mail to notify him that the club could continue selling the T-shirts.

“We understand that this fundraiser probably supports your organizations initiatives and are willing to acquiesce in this matter,” Janasiewicz wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black. “Please remember to have all future shirt designs approved by the University.”

But the matter was not resolved. On Monday, Kacowski received a contradictory e-mail from Joshua Podvin, assistant director of student activities and organizations.

Podvin wrote the Office of Legal Affairs asked the Center for Student Organizations to have NORML turn in all unsold T-shirts and to take the image off its Web site by today at 5 p.m., according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Red & Black.

I checked out the logo policy at University of Georgia and it appears the visage of “Hairy Dawg” is property of the athletic department.  But if UGA NORML’s bulldog is supposed to be Hairy Dawg, then he’s lost his cap and collar and gotten a lot of Botox injections.

The arch is part of the UGA logo, however. But the UGA arch isn’t covered with marijuana vines and, in a somewhat M.C. Escher sort of way, that center column of the arch can’t possibly be footed along the same plane as the outer columns without embedding directly in Botox Dawg’s lower spine. I believe the center column actually rests behind the front face of the arch, thus rendering it a frame of a poorly-built lean-to.

UGA NORML sold out of the fifty shirts and the resulting controversy over a bulldog head and a weed-covered arch has informed people far outside Athens, Georgia, that there is a college NORML chapter there. Let this be a lesson to everyone involved. I’m not sure what the lesson is, though.

“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963

Today our nation honors what would’ve been this week the eightieth birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of these United States.  I was sixty-four days old when an assassin’s bullet cut down Dr. King in the prime of his life.  Today I am six-hundred forty days older than Dr. King when he was killed.  Tomorrow I will see something few people my age and older thought we’d ever see, yet something Dr. King had dreamed from the start.

There remains a grave injustice to be battled, the most unjust of laws to be disobeyed, a law that by its definition is not rooted in eternal law and natural law: the man made code that declares nature itself to be illegal, the prohibition on cannabis.  Yet when I mention marijuana law reform in the context of the great civil rights struggles in America, so many are quick to dismiss me with snickers of derision.  ”You just want pot legal so you can get high!” is a common refrain.

Marijuana law reform is a civil rights struggle.  I will not attempt to equate this struggle to those of minorities, women, or gays and lesbians; however, there are some parallels among our fight and theirs and, indeed, some threads of drug law injustice are woven directly into the struggles of these groups.  The prohibition of drugs was one of the tools of oppression – the “Negroes” for their cocaine, the “Chinamen” for their opium, and the Mexicans for their marihuana.  It remains so today – while people use drugs at about the same rate regardless of race, African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and serve longer sentences for drug use than white people.

Aside from the racist nature of the origins and applications, cannabis prohibition itself is an unjust law.  First consider that it isn’t merely against the law to possess, cultivate, traffic, buy, and consume marijuana – it is against the law to be marijuana.  Federal and state law enforcement spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours flying helicopters attempting to spot cannabis growing out in the wild.  Ninety-eight percent of what is seized is known as “feral hemp”, which is wild ditchweed with unsmokably-low levels of THC.  Officials rip up and destroy every plant they see whether it is owned or tended by any human, whether or not it could possibly intoxicate any human.   Logically, then, the ultimate goal of marijuana prohibition is not to simply stop humans from using it for intoxication, but to eradicate the species cannabis sativa L. from the earth!

Think of that: our official policy is the extinction of a species of life.  Certainly that’s not entirely new.  We’re dedicated to the extinction of all manner of microscopic life, after all, but that is a justifiable policy for self-preservation – we kill bugs that kill us.  I cannot think of another plant or animal we treat like cannabis.  Deadly plants like nightshade and belladonna are legal, annoying plants like poison ivy and poison oak are legal, even intoxicating plants like coca and poppy are legal when cultivated for prescription medications.  But the cannabis plant, the plant that cannot kill you is completely illegal*.  The plant that can provide the food, clothing, shelter, and medicine humans need to survive is illegal.  Nature itself is illegal.  How much more contrary to eternal law and natural law could this unjust prohibition law be?

The fight against cannabis prohibition, against this unjust law, is a civil rights fight.  This declaration will offend some people who will point to four centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, to lynchings and cross burnings, and to beatings and firehoses and condemn my declaration as making light of the plight of those who were truly oppressed.  I do not make light of those struggles, but I also recognize that civil rights are not a zero sum game and the degree and manner in which one is being oppressed are not what make the fight against oppression a just one.  Dr. King dreamed of a day when children would be judged by not by the color of their skin but the content of their character; I dream of a day when workers are judged not by the metabolites in their urine but the quality of their work.

Later in King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes:

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. …

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. …

The unjust law of marijuana prohibition is difference made legal.  The majority compels our minority to forgo our intoxicant, but does not bind itself to forgo their intoxicant.  The majority compels our minority forgo our medicine, but does not bind itself to forgo their medicine.  The majority compels our minority to forgo their religious sacrament, but does not bind itself to forgo their religious sacrament.  The majority compels our minority to forgo our source of food, fuel, and fiber, but does not bind itself to forgo their sources.

The majority may argue that they do not prohibit intoxication, medication, religious sacrament, or food, fuel, and fiber cultivation, so long as it doesn’t involve marijuana.  This to me sounds like the argument against same-sex marriage rights, that gays and lesbians are just as free to marry someone of the opposite sex as everybody else.  If we are given a right, but then proscribed from exercising that right in the manner that benefits us without a valid reason from the majority, it is not really a right.  When intoxication, medication, and sacrament are legal rights, but we are proscribed from using a demonstrably safer intoxicant, medicine, and sacrament, that is difference made legal.

No, we do not face the firehoses and the dogs and the lynchings, nor do we suffer in as great of numbers as did the African Americans Dr. King so graciously led in the years before my birth.  Our oppression is more subtle and codified into laws that restrict our housing, employment, and educational opportunities.  We do not tremble in fear of the midnight ride of white-robed vigilante Klansmen; our terror comes in the form of midnight no-knock raids of body-armored SWAT teams.

Like the civil rights struggles of the past, we work to change laws that oppress people, laws that enjoy support from the majority and are rationalized by tradition, religion, and junk science.  Unlike the civil rights struggles of the past, our constituency is an invisible group defined by lifestyle, not genetics.  That choice to use cannabis should not disqualify our fight to be treated as equals under the law.  After all, the choice to worship the God of your understanding is not genetic, it is a lifestyle choice as well, and our law recognizes that one cannot be discriminated against for that choice.  In fact, it is a bit ironic that one’s choice of God, a belief that cannot be proven by science to beneficial, is a protected right, yet one’s choice of cannabis, a plant that can be proven by science to be beneficial, is a federal crime.

The freedom to worship, of course, is an explicit right recognized by our First Amendment, but its foundation is in the inalienable rights given to us by our Creator, among them being Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness.  If that last one – the Pursuit of Happiness – doesn’t give me the right to smoke a joint so long as I don’t affect anyone else’s Life and Liberty, then the Constitution isn’t worth the hemp paper on which it was drafted.

Also from King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes:

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

Today’s freedom fighters are the people like Eddy Lepp and Charles Lynch, providing aid and comfort to the sick and dying by growing and supplying them with medicine, only to face the rest of their natural lives behind bars because what they did was “illegal”.

Today’s “whites-only” establishments are the “drug-free” workplaces keep cannabis users confined to low-paying part-time or temp service jobs, while the rest of the workers are allowed all the alcohol, nicotine, and prescription medications they desire.

Today’s lynchings are the Rachel Hoffmans and Jonathan Magbies who are murdered by police negligence, solely over their use of cannabis.  Today’s institutionalized discrimination is the over 20 million in my lifetime whose lives are marked with the scarlet letter of a drug conviction, affecting their child custody, government assistance, college financial aid, employment opportunities, professional licenses, voting rights, and liberty.

The prohibition of cannabis ultimately degrades human personality and is against moral law.  It is an unjust law that cannot stand, and we have a moral responsibility to disobey it.  In doing so, we express the highest respect for the law.  On this day when we recognize the greatness of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream, and on tomorrow, when we see part of that dream fulfilled, remember that we don’t fight to “make pot legal so you can get high”; we fight because the Pursuit of Happiness is our right and caging us for our method of pursuit is unjust.

Smoking pot is our civil right!

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

* I recognize that marijuana is legally grown at ElSohly’s lab at the University of Mississippi.  But consider that marijuana’s two purposes – to supply five people grandfathered in to the IND program and to provide marijuana for studies to prove how awful marijuana is to justify its prohibition.  In this metaphor it would be akin to saving a few vials of polio virus so you could use them to make vaccines.

The North Wind – Medical marijuana policy undetermined
Universities across Michigan may soon face trouble enforcing a newly passed proposal which legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Proposal 1, which passed in Michigan in the Nov. 4 election, legalized the possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana with a valid prescription.

The section of [Northern Michigan University's] handbook dealing with drugs reads: “No students shall possess, use, distribute, sell or manufacture illegal drugs, or other controlled substances, in any building or on any property owned or controlled by the University, except as permitted by law.”

It is unclear whether medical marijuana would fall under this definition because, while legalized by the state of Michigan, marijuana remains a controlled substance by federal standards.

Other campuses across the country have come to widely varying conclusions on the legality of medicinal marijuana on campus.

Last year, a Colorado State student who was caught possessing a small amount of medical marijuana had university sanctions against him dropped after hiring a lawyer to defend himself. The student initially faced suspension from the school and mandatory drug rehab classes.

The University of California-Bakersfield, on the other hand, has decided that state medical marijuana rules do not apply to universities. The argument is that the universities receive federal funding and are therefore subject to federal laws regarding the legality of medical marijuana.

I think UC Bakersfield’s policy is bunk, because the California university system is under no mandate to enforce federal laws.  Isn’t that the same argument that San Diego and San Bernadino are trying to make, and the courts have repeatedly ruled that California counties aren’t in the federal law enforcement business?  Certainly San Diego and San Bernadino counties receive some forms of federal funding, too.

I think the Michigan universities and others throughout the medical marijuana states should treat marijuana like they treat Ambien, Percocet, or Vicodin: so long as the student has the legal right under state law and a doctor’s supervision and he isn’t giving them out to other students, leave him alone!