STEREOTYPES FORM AROUND MARIJUANA USE

The criminalization of marijuana is rooted in racism, propaganda and
the Drug Enforcement Agency's manipulation of both to further the
white man's agenda. The continued persecution of cannabis users
symbolizes the last gasp of a government studded with closed doors
and sweeping generalizations about substances that alter the
conscience. But beyond the historical statues of dissent forever
looming over marijuana users like gargoyles bugged by the DEA are
plumes of hope for a better tomorrow -- or at least a more
entertaining episode of "Family Guy."

Humor me for a few paragraphs and reconsider the environment we live
in, where crawling from one poisoned well to another is celebrated by
hoards of young people drinking from last night's puke pitchers.

For most K-State students, Aggieville provides a perfect stage for
two (or more) sweaty strangers to meet and fall in love for an
evening of chugging contests and suggestive winks exchanged over
shots. It's like they mistake the wafts of warming beer floating
around as pheromones concocted by nature to attract a suitable mate
every single weekend.

How many regurgitated beer nuts do you have to pick out of your teeth
the next morning to realize that spending $40 to bump uglies with
whatever is lying next to you in bed isn't worth it?

I'm speaking from experience. I spent about three months in the greek
world, striving to meet the heroic bar set for each pledge who wants
to prove themselves by crawling with the best of them. After spending
my first K-State football game withering under the sun and silently
throwing up when no one was looking, I swore it would be my last.
We've all made that promise to ourselves at some point, but I'm here
to tell you that marijuana helped me keep that promise to myself. I'd
be damned if I ever scraped a beer nut out of my teeth again.

Why am I ostracized from society and threatened with incarceration
for preferring the noxious fumes of a burning bush to abusing my gag
reflex with Jim Beam? You can research the historical implications I
mentioned earlier on your own time; I'd suggest starting with the
documentaries "Grass" and "SuperHigh Me," which are both available at
Digital Shelf. Both films do a great job at lining up the facts in
plain, entertaining English, as I am doing here, but with the added
benefit of celebrity spokesmen like bonehead Woody Harrelson and
high-eyed Doug Benson.

And while I'm furiously typing this column in a dead-week manic
panic, I'd like to give a shout out to all my ladies out there with
overworked cannabinoid receptors (you know who you are if you know
what I mean.) We've endured years of misinformed social stigma about
pot smokers and brownie eaters, forced to ally ourselves with couches
laden with male gamers who scratch and sniff their pajama pants more
than an overheated thong on a Saturday night in Aggieville.

So yo ho ladies and gentlemen of the herb. Do not be ashamed of your
personal taste in downers or your aversion to spending hours in heels
tramping around town only to stumble home barefooted the next
morning. The high of marijuana is far superior to how far one must
stoop to accurately hurl into a toilet at Last Chance Saloon.