What is S.A.F.E.R.?

Humboldt County is a point on the Emerald Triangle, a shape that outlines the areas in Northern California where marijuana is mass produced. Each point of the triangle marks the areas that are most involved in marijuana sales, yet Humboldt State University has not adopted the Emerald Initiative.

The Emerald Initiative is Safer Alternative’s response to the Amethyst initiative.

The Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (S.A.F.E.R.) works to get campuses nationwide to recognize that marijuana is safer than alcohol for students.

In a tie-dyed T-shirt, ripped jeans and a headband tied around shoulder-length hair, Benjamin Swartout got Lafayette College students to look up from their hookahs.

Swartout, 21, president of the Lafayette College chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, urged gathered students to support a fresh look at marijuana laws.

"This is where we make our stand and fight for our rights back, our liberties, our freedom," Swartout told about 100 students. "Today we proclaim the Emerald referendum at our school."

 

Is marijuana a harmless giggle, as John Lennon once called it, or a dangerous and illicit addiction?

The debate has once again been pushed to the forefront, thanks to a couple of timely factors.

Fourteen states have passed laws in favor of medical marijuana, designed to ease the suffering of those in chronic pain, while state lawmakers are debating whether or not some form of limited legalization—and, therefore, taxation—could help plug massive budget holes.

 “The economy is sharpening the minds of politicians,” says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Norml. “It’s hard to argue that prohibition is succeeding."

Powerful, yet subtle demographic forces are also at work.

With April marking National Alcohol Awareness Month, students across the country are encouraging their universities to authorize the use of marijuana as a safer alternative, rather than permitting students to choose the legal and most common party substance, alcohol.

A nationwide day of action was organized on April 1, by Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, also known as SAFER, in order to coincide with the start of Alcohol Awareness Month. Believed to have been a joke at first, many were convinced otherwise when 80 college campuses became involved in this campaign to promote marijuana as a safer option.

A national attempt is well on its way in order to urge universities to allow the use of marijuana, instead of alcohol, as a less harmful substance option.

After an attempt to decriminalize statewide the adult possession of an ounce or less of marijuana failed at the polls in 2006, Mason Tvert, executive director of the drug policy reform organization Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and his colleagues hit upon a new strategy: Focus energy on local campaigns such as city and campus pro-marijuana initiatives.

So far, the plan has worked like a charm. Nederland recently decriminalized marijuana, following in the footsteps of Breckenridge earlier this year and Denver before that. And now, SAFER has announced another victory: In a campus-wide election this past Tuesday and Wednesday, students at Fort Lewis College in Durango overwhelmingly passed a referendum calling on university marijuana penalties to be no greater than those for alcohol. The school is the third Colorado university to have passed such a measure, with University of Colorado-Boulder and Colorado State University leading the charge.

"It's another university where students have taken action and think it's time for change," says Tvert. "We saw this at CU and CSU, and now we're seeing it down in Durango. It's really part of a statewide movement."

Marijuana is a safer alternative to alcohol

Public service announcement: Put down the bottle and pick up the bong. Well, not really, but there is growing support that the alternative to unsafe drinking habits is a small, green plant.

Marijuana might be illegal, and it might be an illicit psychoactive drug, but its presence may be less harmful to the individuals in a community, especially college campuses, than alcohol. Although nobody can argue that widespread drug use is a good thing for any college, it is an underlying truth that college students love to party, and many will choose to do so under the influence of some sort consciousness-altering chemical.

In honor of the start of Alcohol Awareness Month, students from over 80 colleges across 34 different states rallied at their schools for more lenient policies on marijuana last week. Why? Harsher penalties for weed lead students to drink, and they wanted that to change. It is the belief of the group Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, who coordinated the rallies on Apr. 1, that universities with harsh penalties for marijuana use are actively causing students to drink, and potentially over-consume, alcohol.