PROTESTING THE WAR ON DRUGS

As students have been gathering in front of Wescoe Beach to protest
the probable war with Iraq, another KU organization is now protesting
a different war.

"Water pipes on Wescoe!" said Chase Cookson, president of KU Students
for a Sensible Drug Policy. "You can smoke your tobacco in there!"

According to its mission statement, the organization is dedicated to
the eradication of human rights violations and encroachment of civil
liberties caused by current drug enforcement techniques and policies
in the war on drugs.

Cookson, Wichita junior, started the University's organization last
year, which has 200 chapters nationwide. He said it was strongly
opposed to the Higher Education Act, which denies federal funding to
those with prior drug arrests.

"You can murder someone and get a Pell Grant, but you can't smoke a
joint and get a Pell Grant," Cookson said.

A Pell Grant is a federal loan from the government generally given to
undergraduate students.

Cookson said the organization was sponsoring a free showing of the
1999 documentary Grass, narrated by Woody Harrelson, at 7:00 p.m.
today at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.

"This movie does a good job of showing how the drug laws are based on
nonfactual information," Cookson said.

Blake Thomas, KU graduate and Lawrence resident, said the movie opened
his eyes.

"Whenever I see these new marijuana commercials on TV, I want to
cringe," Thomas said about the anti-drug campaigns. "It's scary that
some people might believe the message in them."

Cookson and members from the organization have been selling $1 raffle
tickets for a 1-foot colored glass water pipe this week in front of
Wescoe Hall.

"We are hoping to buy a vinyl sign with money from the raffle and to
just promote the organization," Cookson said.

Cookson said approximately 15 people were involved with the
organization so far.

"You know how it goes, sometimes people come, and sometimes they
don't," he said.

The organization plans on having a rally as part of the Million
Marijuana March in early May and hosting a medical marijuana user
forum later in the year.

"We are bringing a guy that can actually bring his government-issued
weed on campus, and it would be legal," he said.

Cookson said George McCann, the speaker, was one of the few remaining
medical marijuana users left after the government shut down the
program in 1992.

"It would be good to show people a person who is dying and his only
medication is marijuana," he said.

For more information about the organization, log on to the Web site
www.kussdp.org.