April 1, 2010

College Students to Protest Marijuana Prohibition Today

April 1, 2010
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National Alcohol Awareness Month starts today. I find it ironic that alcohol awareness starts on April Fool’s Day, but we will leave that topic for another post! According to an article today in the Washington Post, students at over 80 college campuses across America are peacefully protesting marijuana prohibition, and asking their universities to be more marijuana friendly. The students point to the harms of alcohol, and the fact that college campuses often turn a blind eye to its consumption. Instead, they want universities to treat marijuana the same way as they do alcohol, because after all, it’s not nearly as harmful.

According to the article, students are going to distribute fliers comparing alcohol and marijuana, as well as carry signs that say “This is NOT a joke…Let us make the SAFER choice!” Amongst the universities scheduling a protest are Georgetown School of Law and the University of Maryland. “It might be April Fools’ Day, but this is not a joke,” said University of Maryland student Zach Brown, who is also the President of NORML Terps Chapter. “It’s time we stop driving students to drink and let them make the rational, safer choice to use marijuana when they party.”

When I was in college, alcohol abuse was rampant. I specifically remember a Thursday afternoon when I saw two students, on two different dorm balconies, vomiting over the ledge simultaneously. All the while students were walking by making comments like ‘Whoa, those dudes are so drunk. I’m going to go there after class and get drunk too.’ Although I didn’t know the two drunken students, I don’t think it’s too farfetched to assume that they didn’t do too well that term.

What is ironic is that I was walking back to class from a medication break between classes. I had just smoked two huge doobies to myself, and was on my way to Administrative Law class. I vividly remember wondering, ‘How can the university pretend that this isn’t happening (underage binge drinking), when it obviously has such a negative effect on its students. I guarantee if I was caught medicating, even as a legal medical patient, I would be kicked out of school.’ I know I wasn’t the only student on campus that felt that way.

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