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UT group
fights pot penalty
Marijuana
rules should be same as for alcohol, which is deadlier, it says By KAREN BROOKS / The
Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Students at the University of Texas at Austin are asking
administrators to ease campus penalties on smoking pot and put them on par with alcohol offenses, saying the school has a
responsibility to discourage alcohol-related deaths by taking the stand that marijuana is the safer choice.
"If our elected officials in Texas want to impose harsh penalties for
the use of marijuana, that is their decision, but the university does not have to pile on," said graduate student Judie Niskala,
25, who coordinated a referendum effort on campus and runs Texas NORML, which works to liberalize marijuana laws.
Students will vote on the measure, which is not binding, at the end of
the month. It's part of a wider effort to target marijuana rules on campuses and in college towns.
It's already drawing opponents, who say that while it may be easy to
argue the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol, the university shouldn't be sanctioning lawbreaking.
"We can argue all day and all night which is more dangerous, but the
fact remains that alcohol is not illegal and marijuana is," said Ben Fizzell, director of the Young Conservatives of Texas
chapter at UT. "If that [legal status] needs to be changed, that's different. ... [But] that would be UT saying, 'We do not
view marijuana as illegal, and we won't treat it as such.' "
UT rules allow for a student's suspension for drinking on campus or at
a UT event, but students cannot be punished for off-campus drinking. For marijuana, a student can be disciplined or suspended
for use anywhere.
But the university rarely pursues off-campus pot users. Both alcohol
and pot are banned in campus dorms, regardless of a student's age. So the referendum is largely a symbolic statement on what
supporters see as the hypocrisy of wider marijuana laws.
Working the campus in T-shirts that read "Party Organically," a handful
of student volunteers – aided by a group whose aim is to decriminalize marijuana statewide – landed about 1,400
student signatures on a petition to add the request to student voting set for Feb. 28 to March 1. University officials could
not be reached to comment on what they would do if the referendum is approved.
The effort was originated by Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation,
or SAFER, a year-old advocacy group started in Colorado in response to widely reported deaths of students from drinking too
much alcohol.
Last year, the group successfully passed referendums at the University
of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University. They have similar projects going at the University of Florida, the University
of Maryland, Ohio State University and State University of New York at Albany.
Administrators at both Colorado schools refused to put the student recommendations
into effect. They've said they won't encourage illegal behavior. Like UT, they rarely punish students caught off-campus with
marijuana.
Steve Fox, SAFER national executive director, said that the group is
first targeting schools in capital cities to catch the attention of lawmakers but that the goal is to see the rules changed
on all campuses.
Ultimately organizers want to see state legislatures decriminalize marijuana.
But, unlike other pro-legalization groups that push medical marijuana or ending the drug war, SAFER's campaign focuses on
the student-friendly message that weed is safer than booze.
The campaign also hopes to gain a foothold on changing attitudes toward
marijuana, evidenced by increasing numbers of states and cities voting to decriminalize it as well as efforts in cities to
reduce penalties for students.
UT health officials said that a year or two ago, the dean of students'
office offered to stop kicking students out of the dorms if they were caught smoking pot in their rooms.
But campus housing officials balked, saying the smoke bothered nonsmoking
students.
Dr. Chuck Roper, head of substance-abuse programs at UT's health services
center, said he sees the logic behind the argument that marijuana isn't going to cause deaths like alcohol poisoning does.
But organizers appear to be comparing recreational smoking to binge drinking instead of social drinking, he said.
"I'm not sure you're comparing apples to apples at that point," Dr. Roper
said. "I understand the logic behind it but ... I don't think you should be encouraging students to break the law and get
in trouble. Just like I don't think students should be encouraging students under the age of 21 to be drinking."
UT students became energized about the effort, organizers said, when
18-year-old Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath of Houston died in December of alcohol poisoning after drinking at his fraternity.
"If you look at the rules about how you can be suspended from school,
we believe the university is encouraging drinking," said Ann Del Llano, a civil-liberties lawyer working with SAFER Texas.
"We see this as a life-or-death matter. If they had brought [Mr. Phoummarath] an infinite amount of marijuana and forced him
to consume it, he'd be alive and breathing today."
EASING UP ON WEED
Some efforts on college
campuses, and in college towns, to ease marijuana restrictions:
Students at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University
passed referendums last year asking their schools to bring campus penalties for marijuana use in line with their alcohol policies.
Similar movements are afoot in Ohio, Maryland, New York and Florida.
Officials in Lawrence, Kan., home of the University of Kansas, are considering
whether to move first-time offenses into municipal court to prevent endangering students' financial aid.
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