What Are Those Editors Smoking?

MAGAZINE LISTS UC-SANTA CRUZ AS 'MOST STONED'

Just when the University of California-Santa Cruz had shed its laid-back,
toke-em-up image, out rolls the latest edition of Rolling Stone. Right
there on the cover is this little headline: "The Most Stoned Campus on Earth."

The piece in the iconic rock and pop-cultural magazine focuses on an
anonymous UCSC couple, Molly and Moppy, who spend their days smoking
premium pot from Humboldt County and grunting phrases such as "Crazy,
dude." Their most cherished day is April 20, the unofficial international
marijuana-smokers' holiday.

The article has triggered more fire than smoke on a campus where leaders
bristle at the school's reputation as a mellow place in the misty redwoods
filled with frolicking, frozen-in-time hippies who take flaky courses
without grades. But dude, that was, like, way back then.

U.S. News and World Report recently ranked the campus in the top fifth of
American public research universities. The Human Genome Project and top
marine scientists call the place home, and the university is now routinely
rated No. 1 in space sciences. And, oh yeah, it now has grades.

As a result, many UCSC administrators, teachers and students are fuming
that the school's latest burst of national publicity deals with space
cadets rather than space scientists. Some on campus say that they don't
know what Rolling Stone editors have been smoking.

"It's a great story, but it's at least 20 years old," said Santa Cruz Vice
Mayor Mike Rotkin, a longtime community-studies instructor at the school.
"We're not the least stoned campus on the planet, but no one's offered me a
joint in class for at least 15 years."

The story, titled "The Most Stoned Kids on the Most Stoned Day on the Most
Stoned Campus on Earth," was written by Vanessa Grigoriadis, a stylish
writer who also reports for the New York Times and New York magazine.

"I cannot understand what the writer was thinking," said Francisco
Hernandez, vice chancellor for student affairs. "It came from left field."

Will Dana, a deputy managing editor at the 1.2 million-circulation Rolling
Stone, defended the article as a legitimate slice-of-life piece. He
conceded that the "most stoned" title didn't come from any surveys or data
- -- and was largely based on the city of Santa Cruz's renown as a bastion of
leftism and counterculturalism.

The reputation was enhanced in September 2002 when six or seven city
council members watched as the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana
passed out marijuana on the grounds of City Hall to protest a federal bust
at WAMM's farm.

In the latest survey of the Princeton Review -- which ranks schools on just
about everything -- UCSC doesn't even make the Top 10 "reefer madness"
list. It's rated No. 17. Bard College, a small liberal arts school on New
York's Hudson River, was No. 1.

Rolling Stone depicts the second-floor of UCSC's Kresge College as the
"dorm's white-hot center of stonedness," with students bouncing up and down
on milk crates and skateboards as the Dead Kennedys boom from a stereo.

Puh-leeze! several early-arriving students groaned as they gathered at
Kresge, preparing for the first day of school on Sept. 23.

"The article's such a joke," said sophomore Daniella Wilson, 19, who lived
in the Kresge dorms last year. "It has nothing to do with Kresge."

Junior Lisa Sanchez, 21, agreed. "You could go to any college in the
country and find two kids who smoke a lot of pot."