Six high school students who started meeting at 4:20 p.m. to smoke daily in 1971 allegedly inspired the designation of April 20 as the holiday, according to High Times magazine.

The day has now become a platform for organizations and people to protest drug laws or give out information about marijuana.

Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, a Colorado-based organization, helped organizations on college campuses spread the word about the safety of marijuana use compared to alcohol use.

The MU and Truman State University chapters of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Students for Sensible Drug Policy joined 50 other universities to educate their campuses about the safety of marijuana use compared to alcohol on Friday.

SAFER decided the best way to approach the topic was to distribute information about the dangers of alcohol in comparison to marijuana.

“We decided to compare alcohol and marijuana because those are the two most used drugs on college campuses,” SAFER Executive Director Mason Tvert said.

According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Task Force on College Drinking, every year there are approximately 1,400 alcohol-related student deaths, 500,000 alcohol-related student injuries and 70,000 reported cases of sexual assault involving alcohol.

Tvert said compared to those statistics, marijuana is relatively safe.

SAFER put similar statistics in the materials they sent to the participating campuses to give out.

Truman student Kevin Richardson said he felt his campus was responsive to NORML’s information.

“We handed out all the flyers in less than an hour,” Richardson said. “We received very positive feedback.”

MU senior Scott Lauher said NORML passed out postcards and stickers on Friday in Speaker’s Circle. The material was donated by SAFER and was received with mostly good responses.

Lauher said he suggests students who want more information come to the NORML meetings held at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays in Middlebush Auditorium.

Members of the organizations involved said they think universities are being hypocritical and driving college students to drink rather than smoke marijuana when they teach students younger than 21 how to drink responsibility.

“They don’t have problems teaching students under 21 to drink responsibly, but (they) don’t teach students to party responsibly,” Tvert said.

Lauher said he thinks punishments for alcohol possession in residence halls are “a slap on the wrist” compared to the punishment for marijuana possession, which could lead to arrests and getting kicked out of the residence hall.

NORML and SAFER aim to get college campus to be more lenient with punishments for marijuana use and equalize punishment for alcohol and marijuana.

Tvert said though administrators at most schools are not willing to change their policy on these issues, some changes have occurred on campuses.

Tvert said George Washington University developed a study commission to see what it can do regarding campus policy, and the University of Maine has officially changed its policy on punishments for marijuana use.

The MU and Truman chapters of NORML plan to pass out information again on April 20 next year.

“We’re going to plan to do this every year,” Richardson said. “It was a very effective event.”

Lauher said he envisions last Friday as a start to NORML’s ultimate goal for the campus.

“April 20 was the start of what we want to do,” Lauher said. “Next year, we want to push to equalized punishment for marijuana and alcohol.”