Up in Smoke

Each year on April 20th, at 4:20pm, people celebrate and smoke cannabis together. One of the biggest gathering spots in California, perhaps the biggest, is Porter Meadow at UC Santa Cruz. It's a large event for the whole community - a place where thousands of people can have a picnic, play with musical instruments, frisbees, kites, you name it, and just have fun. It's in a safe and relatively secluded location and problems are rare.

Aw, but someone always has to stop the party . . .

In an April 7th, 2009 message to students, UCSC's Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs writes that Four Twenty "diminishes UCSC’s reputation and draws negative attention to the campus" and then goes on to list numerous restrictions curtailing the ability for students to associate with their friends and move freely around campus. Students are vowing to defy UCSC's “no-guest” policy, while pointing out that UCSC is an open and public campus.

I am of the opinion that pot should be legalized. Having said that, however, as it is illegal, I'd be pissed as all hell if my kid was at UC Santa Cruz - home of the Banana Slugs (yes, that is its mascot, so y'all can stop making fun of 'Eaters) - and this is what my generous subsidy was paying him or her to do.

Oh wait - I'm a California tax payer. I am subsidizing this tomfoolery. Hey, ya little wannabe anarchist dipshit who thinks he/she is the next leftist vegan transgender Che Guevara, do it on your own dime!