One More Reason to Start an SSDP Chapter at Your College

By: Sam Chapman (University of Oregon)

Yesterday I read the story of Daniel Chong, a University of California San Diego student who was taken from a 4/20 party at a friend’s house that had been busted by the DEA for unspecified reasons. The DEA took him into custody, but quickly determined that they had nothing to charge him with so they said they would release him and even offered to give him a ride home. Sadly, this is not what happened. Daniel was left for dead, in a DEA holding cell for almost five days.

During this time frame, Daniel had no human contact, no food, and no water. Then he did what any of us might do in order to survive this horrific situation. Daniel became delusional after days of screaming for help, drinking his own urine in order to survive, and eventually becoming so disoriented he became suicidal and carved “sorry mom” into his arm with the broken glass shards that used to be his glasses.

This is a prime example as to why you need to be aware of what the DEA does to drug users, specifically college students who smoke marijuana. Think about how many students you know who have smoked pot on April 20th, and now think about how many people smoke pot recreationally. Pretty massive number right? This could have happened to any one of them, including you.

The fact that the DEA has yet to issue a formal apology, and is claiming the incident to be an accident simply goes to show that we are pouring millions of dollars into an agency that is utilizing its money and police state-like powers to lock up non-violent recreational marijuana users. Not to mention that this marijuana user happened to be a student, who says he may never return to school because of this life altering experience.

It is important that we view this “accident” as an opportunity to stand up to the DEA. If events like this are allowed to continue without accountability or responsibility, who’s to say what’s next? As students and people who believe that the war on recreational marijuana users has completely and utterly failed, it is now time to mobilize and organize students across the country to stand up against the DEA and the Federal government. This act of torture carried out by the DEA cannot and will not stand with the American people. It is now up to us to make sure the DEA is held fully responsible, and that this never happens again.

Please visit www.ssdp.org to find out how you can start a Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter at your college, or find out if one already exists. 2012 is going to be a major year for drug policy reform, in particular marijuana legalization. Now is the time to join the movement more than ever to end the failed prohibition of marijuana once and for all.

Marijuana and College Athletes: A Story Everyone Already Knows

By: Sam Chapman (University of Oregon)

With all this pointless drama surrounding the ESPN story regarding University of Oregon football players usage of marijuana, it's time to clear the media smoke screen and have a real conversation about college athletes who use marijuana.

A large majority of the general public including current UO students and alumni find this entire media blitz laughable to say the least. Imagine that ESPN had released an article on the rate at which Arizona State University athletes consumed alcohol. Since ASU didn’t win the Rose Bowl or compete in the National Title games, my guess is that the responses it would probably have received range along the lines of “who cares?” or “who forgot to inform ESPN that ASU has a cultural atmosphere and history that shows high rates of alcohol consumption?” The fact that ESPN and the rest of the main stream still finds it fascinating that student athletes (as well as professional athletes) smoke marijuana for whatever reason just goes to show how ignorant they are to the rising acceptance of the marijuana culture in America today.

Ok, so ESPN has already received tons of flack from a number of different venues on the issue, but what is going through the mind of student athletes? Student athletes are likely to be an upcoming topic of conversation as to why marijuana should be treated like alcohol. But can we honestly approach student athletes and expect them to speak openly about their recreational use of marijuana? No.

What we should consider doing for them is to create a safe place for them to talk about marijuana in a way that allows a real dialogue to take place outside the realm of media spitfire and shaming. So I have decided to create a Student Athletes for Sensible Drug Policy group. This group aims to engage student athletes in an attempt to reveal and expose draconian athletic drug policies that treat marijuana as if it is more harmful than alcohol.

Do you think Chip Kelley would rather have his team go out binge drinking the week before a big game? Or do you think he would rather have them stay home, light up a joint and remove themselves from the possibility getting into trouble from attending a raging keg party? I have first hand experience watching UO football players pounding shots at the bar, and it's fairly scary when one of them starts to near his limit.

Yes, marijuana is unfortunately still illegal, and understandably, I don't expect athletes to come out and advocate for the legalization of marijuana. But if they can get good grades, take our team to the Rose Bowl and National championship games, all the while smoking some pot here and there, I say let em play and leave your silly mainstream media opinions at home. 

More info: Student Athletes for Sensible Drug Policy on Facebook

Portland State SSDP on the NORML Network

Last Wednesday, SSDP chapter leaders Dylan Budnick and Romain Bonilla were guests on Kaliko Castille's Irie Island Hour on the NORML Network. The discussion was very much oriented towards student activism and drug policy, especially considering Kaliko is also an SSDPer, having founded a chapter at Western Oregon University. If you haven't gotten a chance, take a peek at the podcast below, and check out The NORML Network for more cannabis-themed entertainment!





Special thanks to Kaliko and Russ for having us on! Hopefully we can make this happen again. Keep up the good work!

2012 International SSDP Conference

Last weekend, Students for Sensible Drug Policy organized it's 13th Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado. Representatives of chapters throughout the world attended, as did numerous drug law reform organizations and experts. To name a few: Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, Stephen DeAngelo of the Harborside Health Center (and Discovery Channel's Weed Wars), and Adam Smith of Oregon's End Prohibition Again ballot measure to, well... end prohibition again! The Weed Blog has the details, as they also attended and covered the conference in depth.

Oregon SSDP chapters made a strong presence at the conference. Among the attendees were Bradley Steinman of Lewis & Clark Law School, Sam Chapman of University of Oregon, Andrew Gwin of Chemeketa Community College, Daniel Bauer of Oregon State University, Romain Bonilla and Skye Mazur from Portland State University, and Christopher Van Putten of Lewis & Clark College.

Not only was Oregon SSDP well represented at the conference, but our chapter network had the honor to receive the Morgan Lesko Online Activism Award!

We would like to thank SSDP for awarding us the Online Activism award, and we hope the website and blog become useful resources for chapters in and outside Oregon. We are very happy to be bringing this home, and as our chapter network grows larger with the forming chapters at Oregon State University and Chemeketa Community College, we hope to become more proficient at pushing for drug law reform in Oregon and beyond!

Meet our State Coordinator!

    Oregon SSDP continues to get more organized.

    The state-wide network of chapters now features its very own State Coordinator, Sam Chapman! He is currently a senior at the University of Oregon, where he's led an SSDP chapter for the past three years. Sam majors in Political Science and minors in Philosophy, is involved with Occupy Eugene, and has a great record of drug policy activism. Sam acted as student outreach coordinator for Measure 74, a 2010 ballot measure that would have allowed for medical marijuana dispensaries in the state of Oregon. More recently, Sam has been working with the Oregon Marijuana Policy Initiative as a student outreach coordinator. With SSDP, Sam Chapman has been campaigning for a Good Samaritan policy at the University of Oregon, and recommends SSDPers to get involved with the “On The Record” project, which would shed light on lawmakers' stances on drug policy. I'm excited to see SSDP chapters across Oregon collaborating under Sam's coordination, and I hope this dynamic brings about change in drug policy this November!

    You can e-mail Sam Chapman at ssdpduck@gmail.com.

2012, Here We Come!

SCHOOLS, NOT PRISONS!

The year of 2011 has been a good one for SSDP, especially for Oregon! There are now chapters in six universities in the state: University of Oregon, Reed College, Portland State University, Lewis & Clark College, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Western Oregon University! We are working towards making 2012 even more awesome. There are several ballot initiatives going around to end cannabis prohibition on one level or another, and I know many of us are involved in helping for the coming election. With this in mind, it's time to prepare for an eventful new year, and this Winter break seems like a good time to get a head start.

The key is to coordinate our efforts, catalyze the exchange of ideas, and facilitate communication between the different chapters, as well as with the general public. To make this happen, we now have several resources available for all chapters to use: an Oregon SSDP website, an Oregon SSDP forum, and this blog you are currently reading.

I strongly encourage everyone interested to sign up on the forum. With a few regulars from each chapter, the communications will flow abundantly and we can stay involved in each others' projects. A good forum requires little effort, multiplies our brainstorming abilities, and enables us to get to know each other. Sooner or later, a live chat will be added.

As for the website, it is a incredibly useful resource to host your content for free. Don't hesitate to send me your content, or take a look at the pages for the Portland State chapter for inspiration. I'm gradually adding content to the "Resources" page, which would help us regroup relevant documents, pictures, videos, etc... Eventually a domain name will be purchased, perhaps something like OregonSSDP.org.

Finally, the blog is your best place to rant about drug policy, talk about what your chapter is doing, and cover important stories as they come out. A few enthusiastic writers (one from each chapter, ideally) would be enough to keep it going, and I seriously doubt we'll run out of topics to cover.

With these new resources, I'm hoping all Oregon chapters can interconnect and collaborate in the hopes of making a strong comeback after the break. I want to hear what you have to say, so free free to comment and/or contact me at any point. This is merely the first of (hopefully) many more blog posts, and I'm very excited to see what we can accomplish together in 2012!