On this campus, the legal status of marijuana is apparently a hot-button issue. I have been solicited by hippies when I enter the Worcester Dining Commons virtually every night for the past two weeks seeking to persuade me that Question 2 - a ballot question which decriminalizes the possession and usage of small amounts of marijuana - should have my "yes" vote.
I wish I owned a shirt that said "I am not registered to vote in Massachusetts," and I try to look at the ground so they leave me alone, but you cannot avoid them. They are like chicken pox.
To be honest, I had never really known marijuana to be an issue that stokes people's fury. After all, if you think marijuana should be legal and you have a right to smoke it, chances are you are already doing so regardless of what "the man" has to say about it. It also occurs to me that Question 2 is going to fail and fail miserably. Those people who annoy me when I am trying to eat might just be the reason why.
In 2008 alone, more than 700,000 jobs have been lost around the country. The number of people who are employed earn less than what the government considers to be in poverty has jumped from 11.2 percent in 2001 to 14.5 percent in 2007 primarily because the cost of food and gas have skyrocketed over the past couple of years. There are 51 million Americans without healthcare. 14 million of which are children. While all of this is going on, our country is 10.4 trillion dollars in debt and just gifted 700 billion more dollars that our national treasury does not have to the richest people in the country.
Don't forget we're fighting two wars. Education, energy, foreign affairs, taxes, immigration, marijuana - which one of these things does not belong?
In this election, the youth vote can prove absolutely pivotal in helping to elect either Barack Obama or John McCain. If you are a young voter, chances are you skew favorably toward Obama. If you get to the polls, you'll help him win. If you stay home, you help McCain win. While the pitiful young mantra of "my vote doesn't count" or "my vote won't change the result" still reigns supreme with the anti-Man.
The truth is that it would only take a small movement in the youth's share of the electorate to swing the election either way. In 2004, youth voters made up 12.6 percent of the national electorate. Gallup, one of the most respected pollsters, has two different models for projecting the race for the White House in 2008. If the national share of youth voting increases from 12.6 percent to 13.6 percent, Barack Obama is virtually guaranteed wins in Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Virginia. If it stays flat, Barack Obama wins none of them. Which result are you more comfortable with?
The fact that it took marijuana to get college students active around campus is a little disconcerting when you consider how much is at stake in this election for people of our generation. I think I am used to that. Hippies are hippies, and hippies only care when you take away their drugs and restaurant menus for late-night ordering.
So, what do I think about Question 2? If I was a Massachusetts voter, I would probably vote for it. Like I said above, people who want to smoke pot are smoking pot so maybe it would be better for the UMass Police to stop the rising rates of crime on campus than bust people for having a good time in their own personal space.
I mean, I have the freedom to be a conservative, which has proven to be far more harmful to this country than pot has ever been. So, if that's not illegal than marijuana shouldn't be either. Now, if you are dumb enough to actually get caught, then you deserve the fine. Otherwise, just leave the hippies alone is what I say.
When the ballot question goes down in flames, I can return to my normal, hippie-free life when I could enter the Worcester Dining Commons without having to explain why "it's, like, about freedom man," is not an effective way to persuade a voter to your side of an issue.
For now, I think I will bask in the endless laughter of flustering them by repeatedly claiming that science has reached a consensus on pot as a gateway drug and its effects being ten times more harmful than cigarettes.
Scott Harris is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at sharris@student.umass.edu.
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