How do Hokies feel about marijuana legalization?

As the unofficial holiday of marijuana rolls around this year, the idea of legalizing marijuana finds itself far more mainstream than it has in years past in the United States. Four states and the District of Columbia now allow legal recreational cannabis use for individuals over 21 and 24 states permit legal medical marijuana. Recent polls have shown 61% of Americans and 62% of Virginians support legalizing recreational marijuana, the highest those rates have ever been. Do Hokies feel the same way?

When considering the answers to these questions, it may be important to look at the history of marijuana prohibition in the United States. With so much information available to the public about the medical value of marijuana and that marijuana is not very dangerous (especially compared to other legal drugs, like alcohol or tobacco), why was it made illegal in the first place?

“I think it’s been made illegal because marijuana does pose a threat as a gateway drug, somewhat” answers Dustin Stahl, a junior mechanical engineering major. “Not many people actually end up jumping past marijuana into very hard drugs, but it can be a gateway.”

“Marijuana prohibition has always been a form of oppression” says Sam Becker, a senior physics major.

Sam Becker

Sam went on to discuss the first marijuana laws enacted in the early 1930s, when 29 states had outlawed marijuana, incited by a massive influx of research linking marijuana with violence, crime and other socially divergent behaviors. These behaviors were predominantly committed by “racially inferior” or underclass communities, in this instance, Mexican migrant workers.

“(President Richard) Nixon then doubled-down on that and realized that he could use marijuana as a tool to demonize protesters, black people, basically anyone who was a problem for his administration and continued the drug war as a means of oppressing people who stood in his way” continued Sam.

Recently, a 22-year-old interview of former Nixon domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, was published in Harper’s Magazine. In the interview, Ehrlichman was quoted in saying,

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people… We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities…Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Yes, you read that correctly. A presidential adviser and policy chief admitted to lying and enacting policy for political control over certain population groups. And since the 1970s, the Controlled Substances Act has kept marijuana a schedule 1 substance, deeming it has “a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the Unites States.” Black people continue to be over three times as likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana as white people, despite usage rates being roughly the same across the demographics.

The country is witnessing the effects (or lack there of) marijuana legalization is having in states that have gone ahead and legalized cannabis (increased tax revenue, lower crime rates, no increase in adolescent use, decrease in traffic fatalities). A combination of all these factors may be part of the explanation as to why there is a rising portion of the population supporting recreational cannabis legalization.

Barslund Judd

Barslund Judd is an environmental horticulture major in his senior year and is in favor of Virginia legalizing marijuana.  “I just don’t know that there’s any reason to keep it illegal, I mean, what’s the trade off? You’re throwing a huge portion of the population into prisons that in turn are not giving anything back to the system. You can’t pay taxes if you’re in prison, you can’t have a job, you can’t take care of your family.”

Rachel Dougherty

“Recreationally, no, but I think medical marijuana, yes,” said Rachel Dougherty, a freshman psychology major. “Medically, it’s actually helping people, and recreationally, I don’t know, it’s just something for people to do. People get high instead of going to school or are getting high instead of doing other things that they should do.”

When asked if Virginia should legalize marijuana Dustin Stahl says, “Sure, just because then you can tax it and actually control some of the flow of marijuana… You can regulate it a little bit more if you did that.”

Kyle Gentle is president of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter at Virginia Tech and is helping launch a state-wide campaign to legalize marijuana in Virginia called ReVAMP (Repeal Virginia Marijuana Prohibition).

“The ReVAMP campaign is about giving a voice to those 62% that support legalization.” Kyle says. “It’s about empowering Virginia citizens, and particularly college students, to directly contact their representatives and demand an end to marijuana prohibition in Virginia.  It is clear that marijuana prohibition doesn’t work, and it’s time for Virginia to take a hard look at what we want for the future of our state.”

If you would like to sign the petition or get involved with the campaign you can contact Kyle at [email protected].