POLICE: POT-SMOKING EVENT IN UCSC MEADOW 'A MORAL SLAP IN THE FACE"

SANTA CRUZ -- For those who arrest people who use, abuse or sell
drugs, Sunday's pot-smoking festival at UC Santa Cruz was "a moral
slap in the face to the cause," said Rich Westphal, task force
commander with the Santa Cruz County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Despite efforts by the university to control access to campus,
thousands of people, many of them students from UCSC and other
California colleges, gathered at Porter Meadow to commemorate the
so-called 4/20 cannabis culture holiday.

UCSC's once student-only gathering to smoke marijuana is now known
nationally. It has grown to 5,000 people strong over the years, its
popularity attributed to articles published in high-profile magazines
like Rolling Stone and High Times Magazine -- along with newer forms
of social media, like YouTube.

Though smoking pot is illegal, no one was arrested at the
weed-smoking exhibition that unfolded Sunday.

Monday, some readers and callers to the Sentinel expressed shock that
police knew what was going on and yet nobody was arrested as they
drove away from the gathering, apparently under the influence of marijuana.

Grant Boles, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Aptos,
said the CHP made no arrests Sunday but estimated that one in 40 DUI
arrests is marijuana-related.

"The symptoms are usually the same with marijuana as they are with
DUIs," he said, referring to alcohol.

Drivers high on marijuana, Boles said, tend to exhibit a decline in
motor skills and swerve on the highway. Once they're stopped, they
must undergo the same sort of field sobriety test as suspected
drunken drivers, he added.

In Santa Cruz, a city ordinance was passed by voters in 2006 making
marijuana-related crimes a low priority for police. Calls to Santa
Cruz police were not returned Monday.

To Westphal, the massive turnout and the sheer amount of marijuana
are symbolic of an even greater problem: How readily available
marijuana is in California.

"My guess is that it came from a conglomeration of places: Mexico,
Canada, private properties," Westphal said.

Add to that list countless state parks, large swaths of Bureau of
Land Management property and caregivers who are designated to grow
marijuana for those who are sick, said Westphal.

"Sometimes they give it to their friends," he said. "California is a
big growing area. Everybody knows that. But when you've got something
like 6,000 people blowing smoke, it's a moral slap in the face to the cause."

Marijuana use has long been identified with California. Not only
does the climate lend itself to growing it, but the state's
voter-passed medical marijuana law, one of few in the country, allows
those who are sick to smoke the drug.

Consider this: If somebody is caught in the street carrying an ounce
of cannabis, even though it could be a felony, more often than not it
turns out to be a misdemeanor if it even makes it to court system,
said Sgt. Steve Carney of the Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"Realistically, it's usually an infraction. It's rarely handled in
the court system," Carney said of possession of cannabis. "Unless
there's an extreme danger to the public, the court levels an
infraction and a small fine under $100."

These days, Carney said, law enforcement officers are dealing with
commercial growers and sellers, not necessarily the ones who are
smoking it for fun.

The system, Carney said, is set up as such to allow for recreational
use -- or medicinal use. The two, however, are starting to become
blurred, and sometimes officers have a difficult time distinguishing
between those who are truly sick and those who are using the medical
card as an excuse to smoke, he said.

"Let's face it. The ability to go out and get medically certified and
use it as a defense in court is just too easy," Carney said.

Still, Carney thinks UCSC handled Sunday's "4/20" event in the best
manner that it could.

"I think it's like going to a concert and trying to rein in the
activities of everybody going to the concert," Carney said. "All you
can do is manage the problem at hand and makes sure it doesn't get
out of hand."

Though university police turned back dozens of cars whose passengers
and drivers couldn't come up with a genuine reason why they were on
campus other than to attend the festival, Barry Shiller, associate
vice chancellor of communications for the university, said
pedestrians and bicyclists had access.

Whether that policy will change next year, it's too early to tell,
Shiller said.

"It's too premature to talk about next year," he said. "It's really
discomforting to have a large crowd using drugs on campus at one
time. We shouldn't let that get lost in a conversation about
logistics, but the logistics themselves were undertaken. We were
especially concerned about high school and junior high school
students getting in."

And some did. Two 17-year-old Soquel High and Cypress High School
students who were mountain biking in the area said they smoke pot
responsibly, but generally after they finish their homework.

"Smoking pot," said one of the teens, "is one of the greatest joys in
life if you do it responsibly."

When asked whether he agreed with any of the studies on how marijuana
can kill brain cells and affect short-term memory, the teen replied,
"I think brain damage can have some very therapeutic effects sometimes."