THE GREAT DEBATE

For those of you who weren't there or for those of you who don't remember
for one reason or another, the SIU SPC Lecture series presented "Heads vs.
Feds: The Debate to Legalize Marijuana" Tuesday evening in the Student
Center Ballroom.

In the blue corner, we had from Champaign, Ill., the stoner of the
century and editor-in-chief of the very well-respected HighTimes
magazine, Steve Haeger. And in the red corner, straight from the fiery
pits of hell, we had Bob Stutman, a 25-year career drug enforcement
agent.

So in front of a thousand pairs of glazed eyes and dry mouths, David
(Haeger) and Goliath (Stutman) tackled tough issues about marijuana
and why it should or shouldn't be legalized. To make a long story
short, Haeger, in the name of all that is heady, put up a very weak
fight.

I don't know if it was just me, but when I heard Steve Haeger, the
editor-in-chief of the stoner's bible, was coming to Southern to
debate legalization, I was expecting to be blown away by
well-developed, heavily researched and incredibly insightful support
for the claim.

But instead, I watched Stutman devour him with fully drawn-out,
fact-driven, well-delivered counterpoints on just about every issue
that came up. At the end of it, I just found myself totally
disappointed with how much of a stoned spectacle the night turned out
to be.

One of the things that annoyed me the most was the
heckling.

Even though I knew it was going to be inevitable, I thought a group of
people trying to achieve this sort of societal acceptance would at the
least act civilized enough to be socially acceptable in the first place.

Instead I, like hundreds of others had to sit there while being
represented by the ridiculous outbursts of complete morons who, by the
way, are the very epitome of why marijuana should not be legalized
anyway. But the worst part about it was that the heckling didn't stop
until Steve Haeger, of all people, the very person these meatheads
thought they were somehow helping, had to tell them all to shut the
hell up.

After that happened, Haeger had my complete attention again, but just
when I thought he was going to totally redeem himself, he'd end up
making himself look like some crusty, old stoner. It just ended up
making the whole debate look as if he was supposed to fail in the
first place. By that, I'm saying I don't think any school in the
country, no matter how liberal, would hold an open forum debate if
they really thought it was going to help to legalize marijuana. And
yet that ballroom was filled to its limits with just about every kind
of a person I could think of. Whether it was the whites, blacks,
jocks, preps, frats, sororities, hippies, punks, goths or even
professors, everyone there came in support of marijuana and it was a
truly amazing sight to see.

If only we could generate that kind of support for issues of just a
tad bit more substance, the college demographic could really be a
force to be reckoned with, like during the fight for civil rights or
during Vietnam.

It seems so ridiculous with all that is going on right now that so
many people could really care less about little things like war,
poverty, or economic trouble, but all show up in support of something
so far-fetched as the legalization of marijuana is. It shows what
people really care about these days: nothing. It expresses the
widespread feeling that there isn't anything we can do. That's just a
cop-out so people don't have to put forth any effort.

As that notion filled my head, it led me to ask a few people at the
debate whether or not I'd see them shouting their passionate feelings
out loud at any of those other boring lectures, you know on stupid,
little things like war and public policy. And I couldn't believe what
some punk said to me, If I wanted to get put to sleep I'd have my
mom read me a bedtime story, Sorry Charlie.