DEBATE BURNS FROM END TO END

'High Times' battles DEA in friendly pro-con discussion On March 28,
Austin Peay State University hosted the Heads vs. Feds debate. The
subject of the debate was the legalization of marijuana.

The two speakers were Robert Stutman and Steve Hager. Stutman is the
former director of the Drug Enforcement Agency office in New York
City, and Hager is a former writer and editor of High Times magazine.
Around 400 people attended the event.

The debate centered around three main topics: Medicinal uses, the
benefits of using hemp and the punishments given out for this drug
offense. Hager argued that marijuana has never killed anyone, is less
dangerous then prescriptions and can be used to treat illnesses.

Stutman said that out of some 400 chemicals in marijuana, only two
have shown any medicinal benefits and that a drug had been approved in
Europe that actually extracted those two chemicals and put them in
pill form without any of the side effects of using marijuana,
including, "getting high." He also argued that marijuana had twice as
many carcinogens as tobacco and produced four times as much tar when
smoking it.

Hager, when arguing for the benefits of using hemp, said that George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana and "paid taxes in raw
hemp." He said that hemp was used for the riggings on ships to make
paper and the seeds were squeezed to produce oil for lamps.

Hager asserted that since hemp was the, "strongest natural fiber" it
could replace petrochemical fibers which he attributed to hurting the
environment. "Hemp has been 100 percent legal in Europe for 70 years.
So if it's such a wonderful item, why isn't popular?" Stutman said.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws, the possible punishment and fines for having anywhere from one
to 10 plants is a felony and has a $5,000 fine and one to six years in
prison. Stutman said that it should be a "nonjailable offense."