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Campus life: Marijuana Debate Draws in Large Crowd, Response
Stephanie Keene | College Heights Herald | 04/25/06

Bob Marley shirts, shaggy hair and a few students who may have enjoyed 4-20 a little too much filled DUC Theater Thursday evening. On April 20, Campus Activities Board hosted "Heads vs. Feds: The Great Debate on Marijuana Legalization."

More than 500 students listened to the debate between retired Drug Enforcement Agency agent Bob Stutman and Steven Hager, editor-in-chief of High Times magazine. Stutman argued against legalization, and Hager argued for it.

Hager began the debate by stating his five basic reasons for why marijuana should be legalized. His first was that marijuana was "good medicine."

"Marijuana is not meant to cure, but to alleviate," Hager said as he listed several diseases and disorders for which many people use medicinal marijuana.

Hager also said hemp was good for the environment.

"Twenty-thousand things were made out of this stuff until it was made illegal," Hager said.

He added that marijuana arrests created the biggest prison system in the world. "Locking people up for use or abuse of any substance makes absolutely no sense," Hager said. "Prison doesn't rehabilitate, it breeds violent, criminal people."

Hager's personal reasoning for the legalization of marijuana came at the end of his presentation.

"Marijuana is a part of my culture," he said.

As Hager finished up with his portion of the debate, the audience erupted in a thunderous roar of applause. Shouts of "I'm stoned right now" and "Keep up the cause" could be heard throughout the room.

Hager, clad in a faded denim, patched jacket and a dingy band T-shirt, then sat down to let Stutman begin his rebuttal.

Stutman began by saying that Hager's argument was more opinion than fact. He quoted Patrick Henry saying, "Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not entitled to their own facts."

Stutman then continued to analyze each of Hager's points, explaining why he felt they did not accurately point out why marijuana should be legalized.

At one point, Hager discussed the controversial statistics on whether or not marijuana has negative health effects.

"If my life depended on it, I would be damn sure reading those medical studies (rather) than depending on High Times," Stutman said.

One of Stutman's main points was that most Americans do not agree with the legalization of marijuana.

"The day the majority of Americans agree with him [Hager], is the day we should make it legal," Stutman said.

A more gentle applause followed Stutman's presentation, which was then followed by a question and answer session.

Due to strict time constraints, only three or four students were able to ask questions. Hager and Stutman stuck around after the debate to answer any remaining questions.

"This event went really well," CAB Lecture Chair Terrance Harris said. "A lot of people have different feelings on the issue, and we're just glad they came out and expressed their opinions and learned something new."

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Buzzby

Did we have to wait until the day the majority of Americans wanted a Black family moving in next door to pass civil rights legislation? Sometimes you do what's right simply because it's right, not because a majority is calling for it.

In light of the general principle that things should be banned only if they present a significant danger to society as a whole, if alcohol and tobacco are legal then cannabis certainly should be. They've tried prohibiting alcohol. People did as they pleased and huge criminal empires, with their attendant violence, were created. That prohibition ended after thirteen years of increasing dissatisfaction with the government and soaring criminal violence. Do you know what they call a person who repeatedly performs actions that have proven to be ineffective? This country is neurotic!

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Eldorado

I attended one of these debates at Penn State. It was supprisingly similar right down to Hager's "faded denim, patched jacket and a dingy band T-shirt"
Anyway, it seemed like about 80% of the people attending agreed and cheered about what Hager had to say. They were excited, happy, and most likely having a good time high or not.
They left out the part about the movie Hager played with all these seriously sticky plants and buds. As I sat there drooling and wishing we'd get some kind of a goody bag for sitting on the "heads side" of the gym.
Anyway, my point was if grass can unite a bunch of extremely diverse college kids, entertain and educate them all while managing to keep the 12 police officers drinking coffee in their cars, what's the problem????

Later