Today at 4:20 p.m., a massive smoke cloud formed above Foss Hill, as well as above college campuses and public parks across the nation, in a yearly tradition that is both a celebration of marijuana and a political statement promoting its legalization. Although many students use this holiday as an excuse to blaze all day, for members of Students for a Safe Drug Policy (SSDP), April 20 is an opportunity to raise awareness for the greater problems surrounding the prohibition of marijuana.
“On a day like four-twenty we need to realize that all the marijuana going up in smoke is contributing to violence abroad,” said Paul Blasenheim ’12, member of SSDP. “We have hundreds of students sitting on the hill and nothing more than tens of thousands of mostly low income and people of color in jail who have done nothing different. If we were all smoking six blocks from the hill, we’d end up in jail.”
With a recent increase in killings and raids in Mexico during the ongoing drug war, it may be worth considering where the marijuana on campus originates.
“Seventy percent of revenue that drug cartels in Mexico make come from sale of marijuana in the United States,” Blasenheim said. “18,000 murders have taken place since the early 2000s. All the money that goes to fund those guns come from sales within the United States.”
Although it can be difficult to trace where a bag of marijuana originated from due to the many steps between the farm and the final buyer, most dealers on campus believe their product is grown within the United States.
“Mostly California. I also do get it from some organic growers in Massachusetts,” said anonymous ’11. “I’m pretty confidant it’s not from Mexico. Mine comes from someone I’ve met in California. It started as a small mom-and-pop operation that grew into a larger scale production within the past ten years.”
Another student said that he is fairly certain his product is grown in New York, although he is not completely sure. One dealer said his supply is grown in Massachusetts and Vermont, occasionally coming south from Canada. Another said his marijuana comes straight from California where it is grown indoors, but Blasenheim is not buying it.
“One of the main problems with marijuana prohibition is that users really have no idea where their drugs are coming from or their own complicity with the Mexican drug wars,” he said. “The only time you can ethically buy weed is if you are buying it from the grower.”
To bypass any ethical quandaries, some students buy from a local Middletown resident who grows marijuana. For most dealers, economic issues take precedent over ethical ones.
Students become drug dealers for a variety of reasons, from wanting to make money to being able to smoke for free. For others, the quality of the product is what matters the most.
“The main reason that I deal is that no weed here is as good as at home [California],” said one dealer ’12. “If I’m shipping it to myself I need to at least be able to make money to cover my costs.”
For others, the price of marijuana on campus is the key issue.
“I deal weed because I want to provide pot for a good price,” said another anonymous dealer ’11. “I was fortunate to grow up with people who gave me good deals. I wanted to provide the same to Wesleyan students. Weed on campus is ridiculously expensive.”
Another student said, “I started dealing to maintain my own smoking. Now I do it because someone needs to sell it and I feel like I do it in a way as non-sketchy as possible. I don’t like the average drug deal experience.”
With the recent decriminalization of marijuana in some states and legalization of medical marijuana in others, talk of legalization and taxation has gained traction as a potential source of funding for cash-strapped state governments. Yet this would be a large step for the federal government to make after years of focusing its efforts on an anti-drug policy.
Despite the many obstacles, Blasenheim believes that within ten years marijuana will be completely legalized.
“If weed were legalized you would probably be able to buy it at Neon Deli,” Blasenheim said. “It would be sold like tobacco. It would be sold and packaged with a Surgeon General warning that would require you to be over 21.”