TECH ADMINISTRATION SHOULD RETIRE ZERO TOLERANCE

I would like to raise awareness of the lack of celebration for the
20th anniversary of the enactment of our university's zero tolerance
drug policy - a policy that our administrators would be wise to retire.

In the fall of 1988 we welcomed President McComas to Virginia Tech.
On his first day on the job, he held a meeting with the deans and
provost expressing his concern for students' quality of life outside
the classroom. March 17, the next semester, Virginia Tech enacted
the zero tolerance drug policy while students were absent on spring
break. There was not even a mention of this policy change in the
Collegiate Times the entire year.

Why no celebration? Well, first of all, there is no evidence the
policy has worked. Drug use rates have increased, and more than 30
percent of current students have reported using marijuana. Since
fewer students were using drugs before zero tolerance, it is hard to
believe that kicking students out of school for a year for
first-time possession has had the deterrent effect that proponents
of the policy sometimes claim.

Despite the draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws and the
fervid public support for coming down "hard on drugs" in the late
1980s, drug use was at a low across the country. This did not stop
politicians from calling crack an "epidemic" and using the issue for
political expediency. The "hard/soft on drugs" rhetorical dichotomy
has always undermined productive discussion of the issue and
citizens act wise to give politicians who use it the deaf ears they deserve.

The reality is that we have kept a profit-turning market in the
dark, attempting to distance ourselves from the millions of
Americans who use drugs by calling them criminals while pretending
these people are not our daughters, sons, cousins, brothers,
sisters, aunts and uncles. When the parental instinct to protect
our youth becomes the groupthink that politicians seize to get
elected, our best intentions have paved the way for our worst nightmares.

Innocent Mexicans are being killed and decapitated by drug cartels
that terrorize for greater market share and access to trade routes,
an unarmed college student was raided and shot by the police in
Michigan for possessing a few tablespoons of marijuana, and Rachel
Hoffman - a member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy and student
at Florida State University - was killed after police gave her the
ultimatum to go undercover or go to prison for buying marijuana.

As well-intentioned as the ideal of a "drug-free" America may be,
these policies have proven unsuccessful because they lack the
reality that our politicians eventually came to acknowledge in
passing the 21st Amendment repealing alcohol prohibition: Americans
will use drugs and prohibition only creates an unnecessary culture
of crime. We left Al Capone and speakeasies in the past, but now we
twiddle our thumbs pondering why drug cartels are keeping us from
enjoying spring break in Mexico.

"Drug violence" is "drug prohibition violence," and the "War on
Drugs" is a "War on People." Alcohol is a drug, but we don't see
Miller and Anheuser-Busch killing each other and terrorizing in turf
wars. We regulate the market, ban television advertising (for
tobacco), ID users and strip the licenses from businesses that
violate these practices. We can and should do the same with marijuana.

If there is something good that is coming from our economic
recession, it is the chance to end ineffective policies just as
Prohibition was ended after the Great Depression. Our new Attorney
General said that medical marijuana dispensaries will no longer be
raided, and there is a bill in California calling for the state to
legalize and regulate marijuana. Also, President Steger joined 134
university presidents in signing the Amethyst initiative, calling
for national debate on lowering the drinking age - or as some call
it, ending the failed alcohol prohibition on 18 to 20 year old adults.

I hope Steger and our faculty and administrators will join students
in encouraging Gov. Tim Kaine to continue pushing to release
non-violent drug offenders from our prisons. The tax-dollars spent
on building the new Western Virginia Regional Jail could have been
spent keeping our tuition reasonable, professors tenured
and salaries more attractive to recruit potential staff.

We are spending between $40 billion and $65 billion each year waging
our so-called War on Drugs. One would assume that with a price tag
that hefty, taxpayers might see some return on their investment.

Yet, the overwhelming majority of Virginia Tech students have never
received effective drug education from the state.

Implemented in 80 percent of our nation's school districts, D.A.R.E.
was found to be ineffective at deterring drug abuse and may actually
increase the prevalence of drug use among suburban children -
verified by the U.S. General Accounting Office and the Justice
Department-sponsored study by Research Triangle Institute.

This leads me to the following question: Why should Virginia Tech
suspend students for a year for first-time possession of drugs when
the majority of our students have never received effective drug
education? It is a wasted opportunity when the alternative is to
provide the drug education and counseling we have on hand.

If we assume students have educated themselves about the harms of
drug use, can we not also assume that some students have come to the
realization that marijuana, especially in edible or vaporized form,
is safer for both the individual and certainly for society than
getting drunk and driving?

While both of these acts are currently a crime, our university drug
policy allows students caught for the first offense of driving drunk
to go to class the next day, while students caught for the first
offense with marijuana are suspended.

When administrators and students respond to this dilemma, we may feel
more willing to return to the dichotomous "hard on drugs" "solution"
and argue to kick students out of school for drunk driving. If this
is the direction our policy is to take, then some students will
continue driving drunk and our attrition rate (number of students who
drop out) will climb, a factor that would potentially cause our
university ranking to fall.

A more effective solution would be to create a Blacksburg Designated
Driver Co-operative and to adopt a drug policy that allows for more
discretion while utilizing our educators and counselors, rather than
waging another 20 years of intolerance.