Recently students have been surprised by the color flyers in Clark Student Center brandishing marijuana leaves and sheriff badges by dorm bulletin boards featuring giant green construction paper marijuana leaves advertising the Heads vs. Feds debate. Obviously, this isn’t a push from MSU for students to smoke marijuana; rather, it’s a push for students to attend a comprehensive debate on legalizing marijuana.
On Nov. 7, 7-8:30 P.M. in Akin Auditorium, the Student Success Series will host the Heads vs. Feds debate over the heated political issue of legalizing marijuana. The debate will see High Times Magazine editor, Steve Hager, pitted against DEA veteran Robert Stutman and it seems to have drawn the interest of many students on campus.
A number of students, including freshman psychology major Scout Wonsang, plan on attending the debate.
“I am so excited for it,” exclaimed Wonsang. “I’m going because I think it’s a gold mine to just watch people’s reactions. You get to see who’s truly in it and who’s truly out of it.”
Why is this event attracting the attention of so many more students than previous Student Success Series events? It is because students, like freshman political science and history double major Emily Baudot, feel that the legalization of marijuana is “a very pertinent topic” for their demographic, as well as for all age groups.
Wonsang agreed with Baudot, saying that the legalization of marijuana “is a big issue. It hits everyone’s age range; it affects everyone.”
On the July 11, 2008 Sarah N. Lynch reported in the Time Magazine article, “An American Pastime: Smoking Pot,” that 54 percent of the U.S. population have tried smoking marijuana by the age of 21.
MSU students expressed similar ideas on the number of people that smoke marijuana, confirming that the number has to be large.
“You would be surprised just how many people smoke weed,” Wonsang said.
With the statistical likelihood that at least half of students have tried the drug, it’s logical that legalizing marijuana would be a relevant issue on campus.
According to the February 6, 2012, Times Magazine article, “Legal Recreational Marijuana: Not So Far Out,” by Adam Cohen, 50 percent of Americans today believe that marijuana should be legalized. The highest advocators are in the 18-29 age range, with 62 percent of this group advocating legalization of the drug.
A current poll of 45 Midwestern students between the ages of 18-29 revealed that 56 percent are in favor of legalizing marijuana, which comes close to mirroring the national poll statistics.
Baudot favors legalizing marijuana, citing its use as a right of every citizen.
“I suppose ultimately it should be legalized,” Baudot said, “because constitutionally, Americans have a right to do whatever they have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies, so long as it does not hurt other people.”
She went on to explain her belief that smoking pot doesn’t necessarily hurt other people, though there are exceptions to her statement. She clarified that even if marijuana were legal she would not smoke it.
Other students who favored the legalization of marijuana cited reasons like taxing the drug to generate revenue for the struggling economy, using it strictly for medicinal purposes, legalizing pot as a method to exert more control over its distribution and use through regulation, and that its legalization would cause fewer problems for U.S. law enforcement.
Although a majority of students polled favor the legalization of marijuana, 27 percent are against legalizing pot, including freshman English major Katherine Palmer.
“I don’t really think it should be legalized because it has a lot of negative effects on people,” stated Palmer.
She said that legalizing marijuana would lead to an increase in its consumption because it would be easier to locate and purchase. Additionally, risks of psychological and physiological impairment were cited as major reasons to maintain the drug’s illegal status.
Additionally, Palmer and other students against its legalization said that course lectures would likely suffer due to students getting high before class.
“People who do smoke weed will be coming to class high,” Palmer hypothesized. “And the people who don’t smoke it will have to smell it, which is really distracting.”
Thirteen percent of MSU students polled didn’t care either way if marijuana is legally permitted in the United States.
Four percent preferred that marijuana be decriminalized instead of legalized.
Wonsang was one of the students polled who proposed decriminalizing marijuana instead of making it completely legal. She explained that decriminalizing weed would mean that the penalty for possession of marijuana would be reduced from being a misdemeanor with $1,000 fine and up to a year of incarceration to a fine similar in amount and punishment to a speeding ticket.
Despite Wonsang calling for a more accepting view regarding marijuana possession, she does not agree with its legalization because she believes that weed can harm people mentally.
“Although marijuana is not bad for you physically, people do get that mental addiction to it,” Wonsang said. “It really does consume their lives, and it’s hard for them to quit.”
In her opinion, the drug is too mentally dangerous to allow people to obtain it legally, but arresting every drug dealer is a pipe-dream; she feels that the only way to find a middle ground is to tolerate marijuana.
“Dealers won’t stop dealing, and smokers won’t stop smoking,” Wonsang said. “At this point we should just tolerate it as we do alcohol, and reduce the fine.”
In spite of the various arguments surrounding legalization of marijuana,16 states have already legalized weed for medicinal use, including California.
In 2012, 15 additional states tried to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana, although only Connecticut succeeded. Six more states will attempt to pass bills legalizing the substance for medical use on Election Day 2012.
Despite the buzz in these states surrounding legalizing medical marijuana, the national spotlight is transfixed on the three states that are voting on legalizing the recreational use of pot.
Citizens in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon are voting on whether or not to permit adults over the age of 21 to possess, distribute, and use small amounts of marijuana legally. In Colorado, the stipulation is that any revenue made from the distribution and selling of marijuana would be used for the construction of schools.
If the proposed laws pass, these states will become the first to allow recreational marijuana use in the country. Students could then reasonably expect to see ads appear in Wichita Falls, and possibly on campus, pushing for Texas to adopt similar legislation in the future.
The state of Texas has yet to vote on a bill that would legalize the use of marijuana medicinally or recreationally. Until then, college campuses like Midwestern are utilizing programs like the Heads vs. Feds debate to keep students informed on the controversial issues involved in the legalization of marijuana.