STUDENTS SHOULD FIGHT TO REPEAL MARIJUANA LAWS

I write with passion, catalyzed by the blinding ignorance of an apathetic
nation; a nation that permits television to be laced with commercials for
mind-numbing alcohol while hypocritically spending billions of dollars for
propaganda against marijuana. The powers that be do this to combat a drug
which is used regularly by more than six million Americans with minimum
effects.

I have witnessed firsthand the detrimental effects that alcohol can have on
an individual's personality. I have seen a caring husband and father turn
into a raging caricature of himself upon ingesting alcohol.

After a few drinks, this man could turn into an illogical maniac who
possesses no regard for the well-being of his wife and four children. To
you, who lacked the gumption and self-confidence to sign a name, to you who
struggles to remain an ostrich with his or her head in the sand, I say
this: The votes of college-aged individuals are as valid as those of any
other generation.

Our youth does not dictate that our voices fall silent, and at least in
Columbia, a large number of us are fully aware of the lunacy behind
marijuana prohibition.

We, unlike our predecessors, recognize that the big-business interests
against marijuana do not justify its remaining illegal.

We are aware that scientific studies have indicated that marijuana is
relatively safe and medicinally beneficial, and we have seen the results of
these significant studies go ignored by our government. We understand, as
we watch our peers vomit out Miller Lite ("It's Miller time!") and Michelob
Ultra ("Only six carbs!") that alcohol is infinitely more debilitating than
marijuana.

We know that it is possible to smoke marijuana daily and be physically fit,
involved with the community and maintain a 3.6 grade-point average.

And I try not to be bitter, as I'm smoking a bowl with friends while
discussing politics.

I try to forget that my government would rip away my financial aid, my
education and incarcerate me for being the individual that I choose to be.

I try to tell myself that in America you have freedom. I pretend that my
country values my openmindedness, my dedication to academics and the
potential of my future far more than a dogmatic commitment to stifling a
drug that I use without self-harm in my daily lifestyle.

I smile when I'm told that marijuana should remain illegal, and that we
should continue to imprison those who use it.

If America feels that the best solution to the marijuana debate is to take
away the freedoms of those who stand in opposition to their policies, so be it.

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just
man is in prison," Henry Thoreau said.

Let us hope it does not come to this.