Pot smokers must unite

While many of the arguments made by this paper are valid and illuminating, any value the article offered was lost with the passage : "This just doesn't make sense. This is not the 1950s. We now know that reefer is not going to make us crazy or violent. OK, maybe lazy and apathetic, but not violent."

Lazy and Apathetic?

Despite the fact that your editorial realizes the flaws of certain stereotypes, it sees no reason to avoid perpetuating others.

Marijuana users are not essentially anything. There may be lazy, apathetic people who smoke marijuana, but there are also committed activists who work hard to resist and fight the oppression imposed by the anti-drug Gestapo.

Furthermore, the article spends the good majority of column space explaining how arbitrary and harsh marijuana laws are, then complains about the apathy of marijuana users. Is it surprising that when faced with such life altering consequences marijuana users do not want the police to know who they are? That they cannot be publicly active because they increase the likelihood of arrest?

The great irony of this article is that the paper was not the first to point out the injustice Steven Treciado, a man arrested on campus for possession of marijuana, faces. The day before this article ran, the campus was covered with posters that highlighted Trecadio's plight, and provided facts about the political disenfranchisement of drug felons.

For the paper to turn around the next day and accuse marijuana smokers of being apathetic and lazy is laughable, especially in the face of real activism on campus.

But apparently the paper is not convinced. Until we come out of hiding and proudly and publicly accept our own identities, marijuana smokers will continue to be stereotyped as apathetic and lazy.

– Andy Ellis
Communications junior

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