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A pack of students picketed Wescoe Beach Thursday as part of a
nationwide effort to promote marijuana use as a safer alternative to
alcohol.
More than 80 colleges and universities across the country recognized
the day of action, which also marked the first day of National Alcohol
Awareness Month. John Hamill, a sophomore from Olathe, discusses
the implications of abusing and legalizing marijuana with KU's NORML
member Jacob Fox, a freshman from Landenberg, Pa. Tabling outside of
Wescoe Hall Thursday, NORML (National Organization for the Reformation
of Marijuana Laws) is trying to promote marijuana as a safer alternative
to alcohol
The event was launched by Safer
Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, a national non-profit
organization founded in response to alcohol overdose deaths on college
campuses.
“College life has become a large scale promotion of alcohol,” Jacob
Bigus, a sophomore from Hillsdale and the University’s student
coordinator for SAFER, said. “We feel that the University should be
promoting safer alternatives to drinking — smoking marijuana being one —
rather than just urging students to drink responsibly.”
According to the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Task Force on College
Drinking, alcohol use by college students leads to approximately 1,700
deaths; 600,000 unintentional injuries; 695,000 assaults and 97,000
sexual assaults and date rapes for students each year.
The US Department of Education lists marijuana use as a close second
to alcohol among college students on its website, saying that frequent
use of either substance can lead to poor school performance.
Jane Tuttle, assistant vice provost for Student Success, said that
both marijuana and alcohol consumption are against the University’s
Alcohol and Drugs Policy and that each violation is judged individually.
Members of Students for Sensible
Drug Policy and the campus chapter of the National Organization for the Reformation of
Marijuana Laws teamed up for the event, proclaiming that the
University enforces marijuana laws more severely, causing students to
choose the more dangerous booze before buds.
“The alcohol policy right now is steering kids towards drinking,”
Thomas Deacon, a freshman from West Lafayette, Ind., and president of
the University’s NORML chapter, said. “We’re just trying to keep
students safe and expand rights.”
After they were through picketing, the group marched to the Union to
hand the Student Senate the book “Marijuana is Safer: So why are we
driving people to drink?”
The picketers also distributed copies of the “Emerald Initiative,” a
response to the Amethyst Initiative which calls for a public debate on
whether lowering the drinking age to 18 would reduce dangerous drinking
on campuses.
“All we’re doing with the Emerald Initiative is asking for the same
type of open debate about whether allowing marijuana use by students
would result in fewer negative incidences with alcohol,” said Mason
Tvert, executive director of SAFER.
The “Emerald Initiative” was sent out to the some 130 college
presidents and chancellors who signed the Amethyst Initiative, but none
have agreed to endorse it so far.
Although the Student Senate won’t take action on the initiative this
year, Bigus said he was organizing debate sessions and planning a
concert to take place this spring.
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