RAPE OPPONENTS PUSH POT TO REPLACE ALCOHOL

A Colorado-based initiative to open dialogue about what impact, if
any, marijuana's legalization would have on sexual assault rates
could soon plant roots in Lubbock.

Shannon Drew, 20 and a Texas Tech sophomore from Amarillo, is using
April's Sexual Assault Awareness Month to drum up local support for
the Women's Marijuana Movement, or WMM.

The year-old effort aims to spark what national organizer Mason Tvert
in Denver called "public dialogue" on how marijuana legalization
could prevent alcohol-related crimes against women.

WMM advocates have yet to frame the theory as grounds for the
outright legalization of pot, but they are calling for a more open
discussion about whether the taboo of marijuana drives many
party-goers to drink more alcohol, which Drew says is "the No. 1 date
rape drug."

The movement has yet to pick up traction in Lubbock, and some experts
are leery of its premise.

Diana DiNitto, a University of Texas professor with expertise in both
violence against women and substance abuse, agreed alcohol can
sometimes stir aggressive behavior, but she said WMM's theory
discounts too many social and personal factors.

"In the long run, I think it would be na?ve to say we could just
substitute marijuana for alcohol and not have these problems," she
said. "That's just too simplistic for science."

She also fears talk about substituting one substance for another
could distract from more direct, and more effective, ways to combat
substance abuse.

But Drew, who has worked with local rape victims for the past year,
said college campuses like Tech must harbor a more open discussion of
the psychological and social effects marijuana, particularly as binge
drinking rates climb.

And with binge drinking comes the most common form of rape in which
the assailant knows the victim, according to the Rape, Abuse and
Incest National Network. Roughly two-thirds of rapes are committed by
familiar assailants, a category in which college date rape falls, and
30 percent of all rapes are linked to a drunk assailants.

Studies have shown as many as one out of every four female college
students is a rape victim, according to the National Sexual Violence
Resource Center.

"In the college circuit, alcohol has been involved in every single
story I've heard," Drew said. "Every victim that I've talked to here
in Lubbock that was a college student, alcohol was used by either the
victim or the assailant.

"And many, many girls have said to me that if they hadn't been
drinking or he hadn't been drinking, it probably wouldn't have happened."

Tvert also cited studies showing the link between drinking and rape
and said he understands marijuana and alcohol are not mutually
exclusive, meaning access to one doesn't necessarily mean one will
consume less of the other.

But he said there's too little to lose and too much to gain in
studying potential links.

At the Lubbock Rape Crisis Center, community educator Leslie Timmons
said the WMM seems to be "grasping at straws."

"We don't know that it would make a significant impact on the rates
of sexual assault," she said. "The way to prevent sexual assault is
to teach respect to the perpetrators. Our prevention is focused on
reaching people at a young age before there's a chance they turn into
perpetrators by teaching them respect and tolerance and conflict resolution."

A message left with a professor at Tech's College of Human Sciences
was not returned by press time Thursday.