Pubdate: Thu, 19 Apr 2012
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Column: Danish Plan
Copyright: 2012 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Paul Danish

CU'S MISGUIDED 4/20 APPROACH

CU has an interesting new strategy for dealing with the campus's 
annual 4/20 rally and pot inhalation this year.

It appears to have gotten it from North Korea.

The strategy involves 1) hermetically sealing the campus borders to 
prevent the entry of corrupting outsiders, 2) arresting and 
prosecuting anyone who penetrates the cordon sanitaire, and 3) 
fertilizing the Norlin Quad, where the pot smoking has occurred in 
recent years, with a fish-based fertilizer, which presumably stinks.

In addition to securing the borders of the Hermit University, 
rounding up any undesirables who might sneak in, and spraying the 
4/20 venue with the next best thing to Agent Orange, one final 
stratagem will be deployed: Shortly before the 4:20 hour, the CU 
student body will be lured into a concrete bunker (aka the Coors 
Events Center) with the promise of a free concert by a former 
candidate for the presidency of Haiti.

The performer and ex-candidate is hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean - who 
advocates marijuana legalization. The concert is going to cost $150,000.

It's not clear how much the fish fertilizer will cost.

So why is CU going to all this trouble to stop an event that has 
generally caused less trouble than a run-of-the-mill rowdy apartment party?

According to CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano, "The gathering disrupts 
teaching and research right in the heart of the campus. The size of 
the crowd has become unmanageable, and limits our faculty, staff and 
students from getting to class, entering buildings and doing their 
basic work. It needs to end."

I think he's being a bit disingenuous. Disrupts teaching and research, huh?

What does he think hosing down the quad with liquid lutefisk will do? 
Not that CU is exactly a beehive of teaching and research on Friday 
afternoons at 4:20 p.m. Give me a break.

The truth, of course, is CU wants to be rid of the 4/20 pot party 
because it involves massive law-breaking, and the school's inability 
to prevent it is an ongoing reproach to the competence and legitimacy 
of the CU administration. And that, in turn, can have real 
consequences for the university's funding and independence.

DiStefano should have the candor to acknowledge that much. If he did, 
he might get more cooperation from his student body on 4/20 than he's 
getting now.

College students admire candor.

I'm guessing CU's decision to go after the 4/20 rally was influenced 
by the City of Boulder's successful campaign to get rid of the annual 
Halloween Pearl Street Mall Crawl some years ago. But there is a big 
difference. The Mall Crawl didn't have a political component to it. 
The 4/20 event does, and it isn't a trivial one.

The 4/20 rally's party atmosphere masks the evil of the thing it is protesting.

The war on pot results in about 850,000 arrests annually. Over the 
past 30 years, millions of Americans have had their lives 
gratuitously trashed by government for consensual conduct that is 
less harmful to both society and the individual than drinking beer. 
Government has poured hundreds of billions of dollars down the pot 
war rat hole.

The most substantive thing it has accomplished is to sow the seeds of 
distrust between people and police, employees and employers, and 
children and parents - and to spread corruption throughout society. 
The one thing it hasn't done is reduce pot use. Today there are 20 
million or 30 million users.

The 4/20 rally involves law-breaking, but it also involves civil 
disobedience that is just as moral and just as justified as the civil 
disobedience that was directed against segregation two generations ago.

CU should have the candor to acknowledge that as well.

And then there's this: This year's 4/20 rally marks the first time 
more Americans favor legalizing marijuana than oppose legalizing it.

This has been confirmed by at least three national polls and a slew 
of state and local polls in the last eight months. The most recent 
was a national survey, released by Rasmussen on March 30, that found 
47 percent of those surveyed favored legalizing and taxing marijuana 
"to help solve America's fiscal problems."

Forty-two percent were opposed.

A Gallup survey taken last October found legalization was favored by 
a 50 percent to 46 percent margin. An Angus Reid survey taken last 
August also showed support for legalization, 55 percent to 40 percent.

In Colorado, where a legalization initiative will be on the November 
ballot, a Public Policy Polling survey taken last November found 
legalization ahead 49 percent to 40 percent.

The important finding in this polling is not the growing support for 
marijuana legalization, which is still tentative. It is the collapse 
of opposition to legalization. In the past six years, opposition to 
legalization has dropped 15 to 20 points in most polls; only about 4 
in 10 Americans still favor keeping marijuana illegal. That trend is 
probably irreversible, and will, in the not too distant future, lead 
to legalization.

Which makes one wonder why CU going to so much trouble and expense to 
get on the wrong side of history.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom