COLLEGES DRAGGED INTO POT DEBATE

INDIANAPOLIS - Hey dude, can we talk?

Marijuana advocates who say pot is safer than alcohol want colleges to
wade into a hazy debate over whether schools' tough pot penalties are
actually worsening their drinking woes.

They argue that stiff punishments for being caught in a campus dorm
with pot steer students to booze and add to binge drinking, drunken
brawls and other booze-soaked troubles.

"You know, when you get high on marijuana you don't act violent - you
just kind of sit there," said Mason Tvert, leader of a Denver-based
group stoking the debate of pot vs. booze.

His group, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, has helped
students at 13 colleges pass measures calling on their schools to set
pot penalties no worse than those faced by underage students caught
drinking or other alcohol violations. So far, no schools have changed
their pot penalties, he said.

SAFER calls its nonbinding referendum push the "Emerald Initiative," a
play on the Amethyst Initiative more than 130 college presidents
signed last year. The presidents want lawmakers to rethink the
national drinking age of 21, arguing that current laws drive college
drinking into the shadows and encourage binges.

The leader of the Amethyst Initiative, John McCardell Jr., president
emeritus of Vermont's Middlebury College, says there's a big
difference between the two debates.

"The fact is marijuana is prohibited across the board. It's not a
matter of age discrimination, as where alcohol is concerned," he said.

Tvert argues the pot-vs.-booze question is still a valid
debate.

"If they're willing to talk about letting 18-year-olds use a seriously
harmful drug, why shouldn't we talk about whether they should be
allowed to use a drug that's far less harmful?" he asked.

Federal statistics show that college students who drink are prone to
binge drinking, drunken brawls, accidents, sexual assaults and alcohol
poisoning.

Marijuana's full effect on college students isn't as
clear.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
about 1,700 college students ages 18 to 24 die each year from
alcohol-related injuries, and 599,000 more are injured. The institute
also estimates there are more than 696,000 alcohol-related assaults
each year - two-thirds of them by students under 21.

On marijuana, the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy
says in its "Myths & Facts" report that even a moderate dose can
impair driving performance, and that 15 percent of trauma patients
injured while driving a car or motorcycle had been smoking pot.

Few schools suspend students caught on campus with pot, said Thomas
Workman, chair-elect of a group sponsored by the National Association
of Student Personnel Administrators that tracks campuses' drug and
alcohol policies and trends. He's also an assistant professor of
communication studies at the University of Houston-Downtown.

More common are policies that remove pot-smoking students from
residence halls and allow them to continue their classes, often with
some form of counseling to address their drug use.

"We just don't have a lot of highly successful students who are
potheads," Workman said.

Tvert said his group's marijuana-penalty measure has passed at every
college where the question has come to a vote, including Ohio State
University, the University of Central Florida, the University of Texas
at Austin and Purdue University.

Purdue has a zero-tolerance policy for students caught in their campus
rooms with marijuana or other illegal drugs. But Sara Wislocki, a
junior majoring in interior design, said the rules don't make sense
because students who routinely drink, not their pot-smoking
classmates, are the campus' big problem-causers.

"You hear about it all the time that so-and-so had to go to the drunk
tank because he caused a ruckus or whatever. But the students who
aren't causing the problems are being targeted more," said Wislocki,
president of Purdue's chapter of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws.

School records show 691 students were involved in alcohol-related
cases in residence halls during the 2007-2008 school year, and 18 of
those students lost their rooms. The same school year, 51 of 62
students caught in campus housing with marijuana or other illegal
drugs were evicted from their units.

Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said students are not required to
live in campus housing, and those who do agree to abide by residence
hall rules and face penalties for breaking them.

Debates aside, studies showing that marijuana affects memory and
learning in college-age youth more powerfully than in adults may be
one good reason schools are tough on pot users, said Scott
Swartzwelder, a professor of psychiatry at the Duke University Medical
Center.

"Think about what college students are there to do - they're there to
learn," he said.