EX-FED, POTHEAD BUTT HEADS

Despite the lure of a free trip to Amsterdam, former Drug Enforcement
Administration agent Robert Stutman turned down a chance Tuesday night to
get high with the editor of High Times magazine.

Mr. Stutman and the editor, Steve Hager, debated marijuana legalization
before a sold-out crowd as part of the Stauffacher Artist and Lecturer
Series on the State Fair Community College campus.

Halfway through the debate, Mr. Hager, dressed in a T-shirt, denim jacket
and jeans, tried to tempt Mr. Stutman to join him at the Cannabis Cup, a
marijuana harvest festival scheduled for this fall in Amsterdam.

"You eat great, you sleep great and you have the best sex of your life," Mr.
Hager said in touting the benefits of marijuana.

Mr. Stutman, wearing a polo shirt and khakis, rejected the offer and said he
didn't think he'd have fun "hanging out with a bunch of 55-year-old
hippies."

But it wasn't all joking as the two discussed conflicting scientific
studies, treatment for users and the historical background of hemp and other
controlled substances in the United States.

Mr. Hager said the value of hemp, from which marijuana is taken, was
unparalleled to any other crop. He said a single marijuana seed, once
planted and harvested, could provide someone with "free medicine for the
rest of their life" and produce thousands of consumer goods, from paper to
clothes.

"Every farmer in Missouri can add this crop to their rotation, and it would
be a benefit and a boon to Missouri," Mr. Hager said.

Mr. Stutman, a DEA agent for 25 years, said several scientific journals had
disputed the alleged benefits of medicinal marijuana and showed that it was
five times more likely to cause cancer than cigarettes. He said that even
though hemp is legal in Europe, no one buys clothes made from the material.

"Just because God made it, doesn't make it good for us to use," Mr. Stutman
said. "Any doctor who tells you smoking is good for you is a fool. Thirty
years from now, some of you may have lung cancer and ask, 'Why me?' "

Mr. Stutman warned that if marijuana were legalized, the number of people
who use it would skyrocket, causing more accidents and an elevated need for
treatment programs.

"The fundamental question is: Do you want to live in a free society?" Mr.
Hager countered. "I want to live in a society where people are free to make
bad decisions. The drug war's a war. It's a war on our own people."

Mr. Stutman said the public, courts and science were all against drug
legalization.

"If one of those three groups agree with him ... I will concede it should be
legal," Mr. Stutman said. "We have a right in this country to limit our
freedoms. There's no such thing as unlimited freedoms."