cannabisnews.com: C U & Boulder: It's 4/20










  C U & Boulder: It's 4/20

Posted by CN Staff on April 20, 2007 at 09:39:28 PT
By Paula Pant, Colorado Daily Staff Writer  
Source: Colorado Daily 

Colorado -- Break out your bongs. The annual marijuana-smoking celebration known as "4/20” is expected to draw a crowd of 1,000 to 3,000 people to CU's Norlin Quadrangle today."4/20” - a public marijuana-smoking event which takes place at 4:20 p.m. on the 20th day of the fourth month - normally happens on CU's Farrand Field, but will be moved to Norlin Quad this year as Farrand undergoes renovation.
Last year about 3,000 people stood on the field at 4:20 p.m. as a thick, visible plume of smoke rose above the crowd. The smell of burning marijuana wafted all the way to Colorado Ave.Last year's event also created national headlines after undercover police officers took 150 random photos of pot-smokers and posted them online, offering a $50 reward for each correctly identified picture.“My advice is to buy masks” for this year's regalia, wrote a person who identifies himself as CU senior Justin Patchen on the social networking Web site Facebook.com.There's little chance of photos being taken again this year, according to CU officials.“The general feeling is that the strategys from last year was not the most effective strategy,” CU-Boulder spokesperson Bronson Hilliard said.Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said the CU Police Department will be present on Norlin Quad but will handle the situation based on how it unfolds.“If it's low-key and nothing happens, we may not do much,” Wiesley said.No group officially organizes 4/20 but information spreads through word-of-mouth.More than 1,074 people belong to a Facebook.com group called 4/20 Norlin Quad.” Another 334 belong to “Come 4/20, Farrand Field will have grass on it whether it's finished or not!” and less than 50 belong to a series of smaller groups like “I Swear that 4/20 is a holiday in Boulder, CO/Farrand Field.”But this year's event is expected to be smaller than usual, partly because of the change in venue and partly because of the somber campus attitude caused by Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech.“That's just the wrong way to cap off the week,” Hilliard said. “4/20 is not meaningful, and this is a week that's fraught with meaning.”April 20 is also the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo., less than 60 miles from CU.Hilliard can't recall anyone smoking pot on Farrand Field that fateful day nearly a decade ago.“I walked around campus that day and everyone was glued to the TVs,” he said. “The atmosphere after Columbine was eerily similar to this week's atmosphere.”Rather than crackdown on 4/20, “we're really trying to appeal to the better angels of people's nature,” he said.“We want the students to realize it's an event that sends a message to the public that confirms a stereotype that the public already has, wrongly I think, of CU students.”Mason Tvert, executive director of the marijuana-legalization group Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), disagrees.“The university is saying their image is being hurt because of peaceful students gathering on Norlin Quad for a day, even though students throw glass bottles at football games and get alcohol poisoning and that's what creates the party-school reputation,” Tvert said.Tvert said CU contacted him to ask how 4/20 festivities could be stopped.“It's a spontaneous mob, so I don't really know what we can do about it,” Tvert said.The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and SAFER will host smoke-free “marijuana educations” events on campus from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that proclaim marijuana is safer than alcohol. Fifty campuses across the nation will have similar events today. Pot-education 4/20 events had been planned at Virginia Tech but are cancelled.Source: Colorado Daily (UC Edu, CO)Author: Paula Pant, Colorado Daily Staff Writer Published: April 19, 2007Copyright: 2006 Colorado DailyContact: letters coloradodaily.comWebsite: http://www.coloradodaily.com/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Safer Choicehttp://www.saferchoice.org/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 

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Comment #20 posted by philw on April 27, 2008 at 13:13:15 PT:
10,000 peaceably gather for CU 420 2008
In these times when truth is regarded as an unimportant "special interest" -- even in matters of war and global human survival -- this act of humble peaceful anarchy is something all Americans can be proud of.Here are some Photo webpages of the CU Boulder 420 2008 gathering:
LINK: http://www.ThirdTablet.com/2008/CU-420/[10,000 peaceably assemble at CU Boulder's Leader-less Annual 420 Celebration. Zero Leaders. Zero Tickets. Zero Arrests. University of Colorado at Boulder, Norlin Quad, Colorado USA -- April 20, 2008].
CU Boulder 420, April 20, 2008 -- Photos
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Comment #19 posted by whig on April 23, 2007 at 22:13:29 PT
Illinois SB650
http://tinyurl.com/22gq6o
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Comment #18 posted by whig on April 23, 2007 at 22:10:17 PT
Clergy join push to OK medical marijuana
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois' latest attempt to legalize medical marijuana is getting support from a surprising source — religious leaders."The moral issue is relief of suffering,'' said the Rev. D. Jay Johnson of the Union Avenue Christian Church in Litchfield.Johnson is one of more than 40 state religious leaders named in a letter distributed to legislators as they consider changing Illinois law to allow use of marijuana for treating pain and nausea in medical patients.But opponents also are leaning on religious morality as a central part of their argument. They say that the real purpose of the movement is to legalize recreational pot, and that well-meaning clergy are being duped."I think they're using the compassion of people who don't understand what the goal is,'' said Anita Bedell of the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol & Addiction Problems, the group leading the fight against the bill.Read more...http://tinyurl.com/2bvzkq
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Comment #17 posted by whig on April 23, 2007 at 21:31:27 PT
ekim
Of course I haven't been to a police event.
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Comment #16 posted by ekim on April 23, 2007 at 19:37:45 PT
whig--- oh winged one
please you are the travler -- been many placeshave you ever taken yourself to a Leap event and asked these questionspeace be with you 
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Comment #15 posted by Christen-Mitchell on April 23, 2007 at 07:05:16 PT:
I Support Leap
I support LEAP. I just question using hatred as a method for understanding. I applaud their work.
They singly have the means to reach a part of the people that the left never can. 
Hemptopia
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Comment #14 posted by Hope on April 22, 2007 at 21:20:15 PT
Sorry
That would be Jeff...with two ells.:0)
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Comment #13 posted by Hope on April 22, 2007 at 21:18:00 PT
Oh...I see.
Christen-Mitchel?
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Comment #12 posted by Hope on April 22, 2007 at 21:16:59 PT
May I ask?
Who is Jeff?
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Comment #11 posted by whig on April 22, 2007 at 21:08:00 PT
ekim
I want you to stop lumping cannabis in with other drugs. I want LEAP to stop treating cannabis like it is harmful, I want you and LEAP to admit that it is beneficial for some people. I want you and LEAP to support medical marijuana, as a minimum first step of some kind of regulatory framework that we can discuss.
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Comment #10 posted by ekim on April 22, 2007 at 20:31:36 PT
whig- Jeff
seems you both agree that just allowing drugs to be sold with no regulation needs fixing.so what is your answer- if you are so against the Leap mission.The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition. 
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Comment #9 posted by Christen-Mitchell on April 21, 2007 at 19:43:34 PT:
Howard
Surely you jest. Tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical deaths dwarf those from illegal drugs. The majority of illegal drug overdoses are the result of prohibition and all it encompasses, as were the woodgrain alcohol and additive problems that the Volstead Act promoted.I've never been a cop, but it seems the DrugWar is a war on people. Presumably you've never been a druggie, that, is most often a journey of self exploration. Demonization and hatred are not tools to be used for understanding. I realize that evil cannot be fought by good sometimes, that it may take a different kind of evil. Still, this is either all about freedom of choice or it's about deception and control.Thanks - Jeff
Hemptopia
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Comment #8 posted by whig on April 21, 2007 at 12:09:18 PT
Howard
Watch how your point your finger. There are ethical, honest people who provide drugs that people want and that help. I took LSD every week for pain. My life was immeasurably improved for having used MDMA a few times.These need to be regulated in a better way, too. Not because the drug dealers are evil, but because the system rewards corrupt people on both sides -- including law enforcement.Let's let the honorable people on both sides be protected from the dishonest ones.
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Comment #7 posted by ekim on April 21, 2007 at 06:25:26 PT
great day at CU good going to all
Just a note for Jeff, in case you know how to contact him:I told the reporter that the Drug Dealer is the most evil, destructive
force in America today (not the Pot Dealer). The drug dealer is the
point person for the black market and that market does cause more pain,
death and destruction to innocent citizens than any other force in
America.howardOfficer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired)
Education Specialist, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc)
Washington, DC
Hablo espanol, je parle francais, Deutsch auch
 
Howard J. Wooldridge
1402 W. 7th Street
Frederick, MD 21702
301-695-1739
817-975-1110 (cell)
wooldridge leap.cc
 
 
The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of unintended harmful
consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the
incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending
drug prohibition. 
 
http://blog.leap.cc/
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Comment #6 posted by whig on April 20, 2007 at 23:30:20 PT

FoM
Does the new guy seem like he's not getting the idea of being polite?
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on April 20, 2007 at 19:16:34 PT

Christen-Mitchell 
Thank you. It sounds like everyone had a very good day.
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Comment #3 posted by Christen-Mitchell on April 20, 2007 at 19:08:42 PT:

CU Puffs Out at 420
CU administrators demonstrated intelligence this year, helping to make the Norlin Quad 420 an event to remember. A rather large event at that with over 6,000 in attendance, double last years betroubled crowd. Kicking off at noon at the UMC fountain area with tables and free speech by Summer of CU NORML, Mason of Safer, Holly G from MarijuanaRadio.org and Dan of Colorado NORML and more.A small number of citations were written, still the afternoon was tres mellow, peaking at 4:20 with both a collective exhale and easily 300 camera phones straining to capture the overflowing quad. Civil disobedience has never rang so true. Music from half a dozen groups sounded off into the evening.Tomorrow will find a fraction of the size of this party at the 421 at Central Park. Organizers are looking forward to May 5th and the Million Marijuana March.
Hemptopia
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Comment #2 posted by John Tyler on April 20, 2007 at 18:57:18 PT

Loretta
So glad to hear this and what a treat for all of us on this special day. It’s amazing to see a person like her develop into such strong person. She was a person from a humble working background who had been abused by over zealous Drug Warriors. Through intelligence and will power she rose up to fight back for her rights. She ran for governor of Alabama and met many powerful and interesting people along the way. She is an inspiration to us all. 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on April 20, 2007 at 16:02:46 PT

OT: News Article from The Associated Press 
Former Candidate for Governor Cleared of Marijuana ChargesAssociated PressApril 20, 2007ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. - Loretta Nall of Alexander City, founder of the U.S. Marijuana Party and a former write-in candidate for governor, had marijuana charges dismissed on Friday - a day that held special significance for her and her cause.Complete Article: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/17110288.htm
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