By Nicholas Proch

It’s been an entire semester of politics, semantics and other things that end in ‘tics’. As the opinion editor of this publication, I may have forgotten what brings the readers to this paper. There are certain things that don’t really matter to the average college student and, frankly, you’re probably looking to read something that you won’t read in the larger papers.

So what does matter to students? It’s easy to dance around the subject of drugs and alcohol and think that we’re too mature for that subject. But are we really? This article will now be done in two parts.

Alcohol On Campus:

This is an age old debate. We’ve been a dry campus for over two decades now, but we’ve seen signs that this may end. The allowance of tailgating for football games shows that the university may be growing tolerant of legal age consumption on its property, while at the same time they are making decisions that make you scratch your head. If in the future a student is caught in their dorm with the liquid contraband, they could potentially face a mandatory ban for several days off campus.

So what should be done going forward? With the university police caring so much about preventing and catching the culprits of drunk driving, they could reduce their occurrence vastly by opening up something that we used to have on this very campus. A bar.

That’s right, for those of you who don’t know, Semesters used to be a bar, and there was also a bar in the basement Carroll Hall. Why would this be allowed? It obviously calls in some moral questions of why it would be good for a university to profit from alcohol sales, but the benefits of the operation could outweigh the bad light it would cast. If it would help reduce the amount of drunk driving to and from campus and the usual weekend hordes of inebriated patrons to the local watering holes and surrounding houses it will certainly be worth it.

This university is trying to become more of a campus environment and less of a commuter school, but to do that they might just have to break some of their newly formed habits. The surrounding community would love to no longer hear the yelling of post-adolescents at three in the morning.

The police could have less to do in finding the drinking spots around campus and ruining the nights of many as they bust up a party for a noise complaint. Of course, drinking would have to be restricted to those who were of age, but it would be far easier to filter out the fake identifications, when you’d have to show your university i.d. which is linked to the university server. I’m sure that this will come up again, and it should.

The Legalization of Marijuana in this ‘Great’ Country:

Boy, this is going to be an endeavor for me to take on, but I’ll give it my best. I find it silly that it’s legal for someone to consume alcohol to a point of no return, end up in a hospital and not get in any trouble. Realistically, alcohol is far more dangerous to your health and to your peers health, potentially, than pot.

Compare the health risks to cigarettes, one of the leading killers in this country. Cigarettes are filled with chemicals, many of which are carcinogens. Marijuana, in its purest form, is just the plant itself. And currently, the FDA has said that there is no proven long-term negative effects from smoking the drug. Can the same be said for cigarettes? I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, it’s completely the opposite.

One of the biggest issues in this country is the illegal drug trafficking within and over our borders. The legalization of marijuana would basically eliminate the need to go down to the corner and make a shady deal with someone in an alley. If you could go to a store to buy the drug, just as you can alcohol or tobacco, you could control its supply, tax it and eliminate much of the violence that ensues from the cartels who control its supply.

The idea that pot is a gateway drug is widely considered to be false by the majority of its users. It’s actually the environment which you become a part of due to the secrecy and the individuals you have to come in to contact with that leads to trying other things. A drug dealer is always looking to make more money. If they can get you addicted to another substance, they will open up the door to make a higher profit for themselves.

It will also open up many industries which go along with the substance. The contraband that goes with it, the employees of these potential ‘pot shops,’ and the growing and harvesting which can be done on our soil by the struggling farming communities in this nation.

This will also help the law enforcement of this country. They will not have to patrol and enforce this drug, but the other benefit is much greater. They can turn their focus to the real killers in this country, the harder drugs. If you think that marijuana is at the same level as heroin and cocaine, then you should have your head examined. They don’t compare at all. There are plenty of students who come to class after having a smoke and they function like a normal individual. If they had come in on heroin, I don’t think they could have flown under the radar.

It’s not going to be easy for this to be passed on the federal level, but there will be a huge following and an unrest until this happens. If and once it is passed, the option will be left open for states to ban it on an individual level. This happened after prohibition. Several states didn’t allow alcohol for years to come.

Conclusion:

If we’ve learned anything from prohibition, it’s that you can’t keep the people away from what they want, when they want it. The U.S. law enforcement wasted far too many of its resources in fighting a losing battle against bootleggers and speakeasies. People on this campus will find a way to drink and will continue to find a place to drink, mostly while driving to these places and putting the public at risk. And in this country, people will smoke. Knowing that, we should implement a way to make it safer and also make money on it. It could be a way to start pulling us out of a great recession, who knows.