PIPE DREAM ON THE WEB

The "Most Famous Narc" And The "Most Famous Pothead" Faced Off

Marijuana offers users a chance to have great food, great sleep and
the best sex of your life, according to the editor in chief of High
Times magazine, Steven Hager.

But former drug enforcement agent Bob Stutman thinks
differently.

"The primary reason that most people in favor of marijuana use give
has nothing to do with counterculture, hemp or medicine," he said.
"You know what it is? 'It's my recreational drug of choice and I
want to be able to use it when I want to be able to use it.'"

Hager -- nicknamed "the most famous pothead in America" -- and
Stutman -- "the most famous narc in America" -- duked out their views
on the legalization of marijuana on campus Monday in a debate dubbed
"Heads vs. Feds."

The discussion, which drew more than 600 people to Lecture Hall 1,
was sponsored by the Student Association Programming Board and Off
Campus College Council. The event covered health, legal and cultural
issues relating to the psychoactive drug and drew more people than
could fit in the lecture hall, as organizers were forced to close the
doors on incoming people at 8 p.m.

"I knew it'd be popular," said Aaron Butler, insights chair of the
SAPB. "But I didn't think we'd actually have to turn people away."

According to Hager, one reason for the legalization of marijuana is
its health benefits. It's a good and cheap medicine for diseases
including AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis, he said.

"I know people that can walk again because they use marijuana as
medicine. I know people that can see again because they use marijuana
as medicine," Hager said. "I know people that can live because they
use marijuana as medicine."

And since the health care system is run on a for-profit basis, Hager
said, pharmaceutical companies refuse to allow legalization of
marijuana because it would provide such accessible medicine for
everyone and therefore decrease the companies' revenues.

Stutman, who was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for 25
years, countered Hager's health argument.

Marijuana affects ability to judge depth perception and can therefore
impair driving ability and cause more car accidents, he said. It also
interferes with the ability to reason and to think logically.

Studies have shown it causes dependence for 13 percent of users and
may bring mouth, throat or lung cancer, Stutman said. Marijuana
cigarettes have a 25-year gestation period -- so the true effects of
smoking may not become visible for years.

"If these studies are right, some of you could come down with lung
cancer in 25 years and you'll say, 'Why me?'" Stutman said. "And it
could be because you used a drug when you had no idea what the side
effects were."

Hager also claimed that legalization would lead to reform of the
industrial prison system.

According to Hager, when people are convicted of drug possession they
face forfeiture, a legal term meaning that the government can take
everything they own. Additionally, judges are constrained by
mandatory minimum sentences in such cases, leading to large numbers
of people being jailed. Prisoners convicted of armed robbery, rape or
murder face neither forfeiture nor minimum sentences.

"Building the biggest prison in the known world is not a hallmark of
free society," Hager said.

In addition to environmental benefits and a decrease in corruption,
legalization of marijuana would also allow cultures which depend on
marijuana to practice their religion without prosecution, Hager said.

But Stutman disagreed.

"I can do anything I want in the name of religion," he said. "Gee, I
thought we learned that lesson after 9/11."

Stutman also said that though 80 percent of college students are in
favor of legalization, by the time they reach 35, 75 percent of them
have changed their minds.

"The day the majority of the American public wants marijuana made
legal as a recreational drug, I think we should legalize it," Stutman
said. "The problem is that right now, 82 percent of Americans don't."

For proponents of marijuana, Hager urged using the drug
responsibly.

"If you're running off to do a breakfast bong and trying to take your
calculus exam and you think you're doing something for legalization,
I've got a rude awakening for you," Hager said. "You are not part of
the solution, you are the biggest part of the problem."

Student Katie Richards found it hard to completely agree with either
speaker because they were both "too extreme," she said.

"I came in thinking legalizing was good, but [Stutman] brought up
good points, so I have to think about it."