“Bowls, Weeds, and Joints,” a new residence hall anti-marijuana seminar
You may have seen the nutcases walking around campus a couple weeks ago, wielding signs warning gays that they were going to hell for their lifestyles. It was a pitiful display, which most students, I hope, didn’t take seriously. Their actions seem completely out of touch with our current society, and I think everyone recognized that they had no affiliation with KU. They were nobodies, nobodies who were trying to push their agenda on students, but nobodies just the same. The sight of them may have been an annoyance, but it was mostly harmless.
What isn’t as harmless is when KU uses similar tactics – outdated “evidence,” scare tactics – to try to push an agenda on its students.
I’m referring to a recent anti-marijuana seminar held by my residence hall, titled “Bowls, Weeds, and Joints.” The goal of the program was to educate students on how terrible marijuana is. Certainly, the program would include most of the same garbage students have heard since grade school: obligatory uses of the words “munchies” and “gateway drug,” along with how smoking marijuana will invariably turn you into an unmotivated, dreadlocked, permanent resident of your mother’s basement.
I opposed the seminar, and at the Hall Council meeting preceding “Bowls, Weeds, and Joints,” I articulated why I thought it was wrong to hold the seminar. I questioned why funds raised by students should be wasted on such a futile cause. After all, I opined, college students are either going to smoke pot or they aren’t. For years, we’ve been pounded over the head with people telling us the horrors of marijuana; I think each college student on campus has heard enough. They either care, or they don’t – but no one is going to think, “I’m considering smoking weed, but I’m going to forgo making a decision until after I attend ‘Bowls, Weeds, and Joints.’”
I also questioned the ethics of holding a meeting about a controversial issue like marijuana use. Sure, marijuana is illegal at the federal level – so is same-sex marriage. I think most KU students would agree, regardless of their feelings toward the legalization of same-sex marriage, that an anti-same-sex marriage seminar, hosted by KU and using funds raised by students, would be inappropriate. Marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage legalization may not be perfect parallels, but they both have fervent supporters and, ultimately, they’re both about a person’s right to choose what he wants to do with his body.
After I was finished speaking, I was pretty satisfied with myself. I thought I made some good, well-spoken points. The Hall Council was sure to agree, and cancel the seminar.
Or not. If you heard the immediacy and the adamancy with which my suggestion was shot down, you’d think I had suggested a meth lab be opened in the South Dining Hall.
My “opponents” – various members of the dormitory staff, including the building director – continued to emphasize the illegality of pot. Even though I had already acknowledged that fact in my speech, I again questioned if it would be OK to use student funds to host an anti-same-sex marriage meeting. One of the building CA’s was polite enough to inform me that anti-same-sex marriage laws are wrong, but anti-marijuana laws are right. I was glad she told me that; up until that time, I didn’t realize that I was living with the arbiter of what laws are just and what laws are unjust. It was good to learn otherwise.
I left that Hall Council meeting defeated, but my determination remained intact. A few days later, I spoke with my building director. The time may have given him chance to reconsider, I thought, and perhaps a one-on-one chat would reduce his stress levels, allowing him to come to a more rational conclusion.
Again, I was wrong. He remained steadfast that it was acceptable to push an anti-marijuana agenda on the minds of impressionable freshman (who constitute 98 percent of the building’s population). He also provided me with this gem: “If you want to start a pro-pot meeting in the [dormitory’s] common room, you’re free to do that. But don’t expect to get any funding.”
That quote was discouraging. I thought to explain to him that anti-anti-pot seminars doesn’t necessarily make me “pro-pot,” but I understood the hopelessness of it. I was also discouraged to learn that even if I wanted to host a pro-marijuana seminar, I wouldn’t be able to get funding, though causes that I find opposable can seemingly get all the funding they want.
“Bowls, Weeds, and Joints” ended up taking place, and although I’d like to report what happened, my principles wouldn’t allow me to attend something I found so objectionable.
On Nov. 4, Election Day, Maine constituents actually voted in favor of medical marijuana legalization, but against same-sex marriage. Although Maine voters appear to remain homophobic, a large portion of society seems to be gradually shifting toward having more open-minded feelings about issues regarding marijuana and same-sex marriage legalization. We, as college students, should be at the forefront of this renaissance. Unfortunately, people on the KU payroll are unwilling to adapt (or at least let students come to their own conclusions), and are relying on repeating the same kind of doctrines that made the 1936 film Reefer Madness so risible. Isn’t the perpetuation of ignorance the exact opposite of this university’s aim?
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