Student group says it backs 'responsible use' 

It's spring, and a young man's fancy turns to, well, marijuana at Kent State.

Freshman Dave Goldstein and other students in a pro-marijuana group will rally Thursday to coax university officials to be more lenient to the student use of cannabis.

''We condone the responsible use of marijuana. We don't think you should get high and go to class, just like you shouldn't get drunk and go to class,'' said Goldstein, a political science major from Highland Heights who said he smokes pot daily.

The nationwide organization Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation of Denver has sponsored nationwide rallies at 80 colleges and universities in April to promote debate on pot.

SAFER believes that pot is safer for the user and for society and should be put on an equal footing with alcohol.

''There has never been a single fatal marijuana overdose in history,'' said SAFER Executive Director Mason Tvert of Denver.

He cites statistics from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that drinking contributes to 1,700 student deaths from alcohol-related injuries, including motor vehicle accidents; 696,000 student assaults; and 97,000 sexual assaults and date rapes each year.

Yet the National Institute on Drug Abuse is hardly exuberant
about marijuana. The NIDA maintains that marijuana useproduces ''adverse physical, mental, emotional and behavioral changes, and — contrary to popular belief — it can be addictive.''

Still, SAFER questions universities' policies of penalizing students for lighting up and, in essence, steering them toward alcohol and all the hazards that come with it.

''Why are we telling them to drink responsibly when we could be telling them to party responsibly?'' Tvert said.

Goldstein said the 30 students in his group, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, will rally at noon on Risman Plaza in front of the Student Center and walk to the office of KSU President Lester Lefton.

Students will ask Lefton to endorse SAFER's Emerald Initiative, which aims to foster debate about whether marijuana use by students could reduce dangerous drinking on and around college campuses.

SAFER is copying an effort called the Amethyst Initiative, a statement endorsed by 130 college presidents and chancellors on whether the legal drinking age should be lowered to 18 to curb student binge drinking.

The three Ohio college presidents who have signed the Amethyst Initiative are Gordon Gee at Ohio State, Dennison Griffith of the Columbus College of Art and Design and S. Georgia Nugent of Kenyon College.

KSU dean of students Greg Jarvie said he supported the students' First Amendment right to voice their opinion, but the university did not agree with their views. ''We do not endorse any type of drug use or underage drinking,'' he said.