Marijuana public service project

Dear Ms. Stephanie Vogel -

I am writing this letter to you as a humble request for assistance in advancing the public opinion of marijuana in the United States. I am part of the NORML organization, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and we believe that marijuana laws and policy in this country could be changed by an advance of the public opinion on the substance. 

lmost 50% of Americans have tried marijuana sometime in their lifetime, and 10% are current users (people who have used in the last month). The drug remains illegal, however, and a whole lot of misinformation is spread about it. Unlike alcohol, which anyone can find information about real-life effects, risks, concerns, and support systems, none of that exists for marijuana users. Because the substance is illegal, teens using it don't have access to reliable, unbiased information, and adults who may be having problems with the drug don't know where they can go for support for their use aside from narcotics anonymous, which might be a bit scary for someone who is only using marijuana.

I'm purposing that that all change. I'm looking for money to create a program to spread accurate, unbiased information about marijuana through the internet and television ads, as well as flyers and brochures like the ones you will find in student health centers. As opposed to scaring people and hyperbolizing the negative side effects of the drug, this campaign of information will tell its audience the effects, both positive and negative, and attempt to show both sides of the argument. It will also provide information to people who may think they are smoking too much such as advice on how to cut back and places to go for help. I estimate this will cost around $50,000, and I am coming to you for help.

Thanks for your consideration.

-Angelo Carosio

MPP #1

Part 1:

The issue of medical marijuana is complex. The debate that is going on surrounding it currently is mostly fueled by the federal government, as more as more states are passing laws allowing it, and more and more doctors are prescribing it for a variety of ailments. There’s little an average person can say to further this debate or enter into it, mostly because the question of whether it’s good medicine or not should be left up to doctors and people who know about the human body better than I. However, the issue of marijuana legalization for personal use has been thrust into the forefront recently, with the state of California having a bill being purposed that will do just that. This issue I believe I can speak from with a little bit more authority.

This issue has clouded a lot of people’s judgment. On one hand you have marijuana fanatics, who are creating websites and groups and clubs in an attempt to make the substance legal, and distorting the facts in their favor. These people usually also smoke too much of the substance themselves. The other side is anti-drug fanatics who will use any tactic including fear and manipulation to stop people from doing any kind of drug at all. I believe that I can show good sense through my position in the middle of this issue. I’m familiar with the effects of marijuana, understand how it affects the body and mind, but also know of the dangers of using any substance too much. It’s clearly not a miracle drug, but getting high some isn’t going to turn a person into a worthless couch potato. I can also show good character through this as well. I might be for legalization, but I haven’t let my emotions cloud my judgment. I can see where both sides are coming from, and I’m not going to bash on my opposition or belittle them just to demonstrate my point.

I can show good will through appeals to the safety of people and to the health of the economy. Nonviolent pot offenders are thrown in prisons where they coexist with people who have multiple assaults on their record, and can easily get in way over their head. Legalization or at least decriminalization would put a stop to this and protect mostly peaceful, docile people from a very scary place. In addition, taxation of marijuana could bring in millions of dollars to the government. We pretty much need all we can get right now in the budget department, so these both would be good ways to show that I’m looking out for the good of everyone.

Part 2:

Taking a look at the NORML website (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), there are multiple persuasive pieces on the legalization of marijuana, both for personal use and for medical use. I looked at one post in particular, called “Marijuana Legalization Talking Points.” It is an effective piece of persuasion, giving four concrete reasons why marijuana legalization should become a reality.

Each point has a large amount of information backing it up. They are very logos heavy, citing lots of hard facts. The point that “Decriminalizing marijuana frees up police resources to deal with more serious crimes” cites facts like “Taxpayers annually spend between $7.5 billion and $10 billion arresting and prosecuting individuals for marijuana violations. Almost 90 percent of these arrests are for marijuana possession only,” and “The state of California saved nearly $1 billion dollars from 1976 to 1985 by decriminalizing the personal possession of one ounce of marijuana, according to a study of the state justice department budget.” All of these facts have sources cited that you can easily click and check out for yourself.

There’s also some pathos mixed in. They back up the point that “Far more harm is caused by the criminal prohibition of marijuana than by the use of marijuana itself.” This is backed up by an appeal to pathos and logos: “Convicted marijuana offenders are denied federal financial student aid, welfare and food stamps, and may be removed from public housing. Other non-drug violations do not carry such penalties,” this is effective because it is raw facts mixed in with an appeal to emotion. Why should these people be denied things like food stamps? How is marijuana use related to those things at all?

Overall, this page is very effective in defending its positions on marijuana legalization. They cite surveys, research, and laws to prove their point that keeping marijuana illegal is unproductive for our country and its progress. I have seen multiple references to this page on various internet discussion boards such as reddit.com and dig.com, where people refer to it to back up points about marijuana legalization. People know that facts work, and this page is full of hard, concrete facts that don’t leave much room for interpretation.

College Humor

With short-form web comedy, the sky is really the limit.

Unconstrained by broadcast guidelines, television networks, and dated ideas of what's appropriate for "general audiences," Collegehumor.com has managed to provide us with exactly what we want with humor: consistent laughs with no filler.

Sketch shows like SNL are extremely dated. Because of the internet, the 18-24 demographic has lost their attention span, and the thought of sitting through an hour and a half show to get some laughs just isn't viable anymore--not to mention the amount of filler and commercials put in an average episode to reach the length that's required.

Videos on collegehumor can cuss, be provocative, sexy, and offensive, and not have to worry. Videos like "Girl's costume warehouse" have main characters cussing like sailors for comedic effect, and a mock "ER" spot says the episode advertised will make you "shit your pants." While fake TV commercials have been a staple of SNL and MADtv for a long time, they're never quite as funny as the ones on college humor.

The videos are mostly short (under 5 minutes) and pack in the laughs almost nonstop. Most television sketch comedy might have a few laughs, but most of the time I find myself wondering why the canned laughter is so loud, since nobody I'm watching the show with seemed to make any noise at all.

Medical Marijuana

Laws exist to protect the people. If laws aren't protecting us, what point do they have? If, however, everyone who has smoked pot in their life (an illegal act) was put in jail, it would do far more harm than good. Admitted marijuana users include almost all musicians, several supreme court justices, and at least the last 3 presidents of the United States. 

There is no reason that marijuana should remain illegal, and even less of a reason that medical marijuana should still exist in the legal limbo that it exists in now. There have been 0 deaths caused directly by marijuana, and study after study proves that it is a safer drug than both alcohol and nicotine, which both have yearly deaths in the thousands.

A magazine ad featured a job advertisement for a "burrito taster" with the caption "there aren't a lot of jobs out there for pot smokers." You know, except the presidency.

Viaduct

The debate from class today very accurately represented both sides. The viaduct replacement is an extremley controversial issue and I'm not quite sure what I want to think either. On one hand, I see congestion as a huge issue in Seattle, and even though I'm not a regular driver myself on the occasion that I do the amount of traffic can be very annoying. On the other hand, however, I don't think that building more roads and tunnels and places for cars to drive will really get at the root of the problem. Seattle needs a mass transportation system akin to New York's subway or D.C's metro. It needs a way to move around thousands of people easily. That is not going to happen with a tunnel, and it will only happen by promoting more light rail, and fast.

Ditch the tunnel, and work on as much light rail as possible. That's a plan I can get behind.

Major Analysis Paper Final Draft

A legitimate business with all the proper state permits was raided in broad daylight by DEA agents. Pamphlets at student health centers say marijuana can cause schizophrenia, but the common image of a marijuana user is a docile, giggly person—not an insane one. Marijuana use, and its possible medical applications, has been a constant debate in the political world for years. As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws the federal government also increases their efforts to shut the dispensaries down and spread information discouraging people to vote for future bills. The problem, however, is that the messages being sent to the general public about marijuana are extremely conflicting. The pro and anti-marijuana sides of the debate both exaggerate facts, over generalize, and use questionable tactics to draw supporters. The question that becomes important then, is: who do you believe? It’s important for people who are voting on bills to have accurate information about what they are voting for, and with marijuana, that is not usually the case.

Disinformation has been spread around about marijuana ever since the drive to get it banned in the 1930’s. “Reefer Madness,” the famous 30’s exploitation film scared parents into thinking their children would enter a “drug-crazed abandon” if they ever got high. On the other hand, the list of ailments you can get a marijuana prescription for in California far outnumbers almost any other drug, making it out to be some miracle plant. Clearly the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

The way marijuana is portrayed in the media is one of the primary reasons for this confusion. TV ads and other media from organizations like “Above the Influence,” and the National Institute on Drug Abuse attempt to characterize weed-smokers as boring, anti-social, and prone to being nothing but couch potatoes, but popular movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” and “Super High Me” show their main characters getting high and doing the exact opposite: being social and having interesting conversations. It’s also rare that characters in movies or television will encounter negative consequences relating to marijuana, whereas when harder drugs are involved that’s almost always the case.

“Stoners in the Mist” is a series of short Internet videos created by Above The Influence, aimed at capturing YouTube era adolescents and other people who might not be influenced easily by TV commercials. Its goal is obvious: convincing people that marijuana shouldn’t be used. Its claim is that “stoners” are lazy, forgetful, and anti-social. The warrants for the claim they present are many, but are mostly fairly shallow. The video pieces that provide the support are shorts shot in the style of a nature documentary, featuring a host that’s reminiscent of the Crocodile Hunter. They claim that marijuana makes you “sedentary, uninspired, remarkably unmotivated,” and show through their clips marijuana users having difficulty with simple social interactions, being oblivious to their psychical appearance, and spending days sitting in the same place watching television.

Their support and warrants, however, come across as extremely inaccurate. The majority of the way they warrant their claims is through visual evidence, which in this case is obviously staged. These aren’t real “stoners,” but actors paid to pretend to conform to the lazy stoner stereotype. The website also makes the claim that stoners have “extreme difficulty fitting in to social groups,” but again only provides an over-the-top sketch to support that claim, where a “normal person” tries to make conversation with a stoner, who is too out of it to even remember his name. The only real warrants offered on the website is a small section called “marijuana: the facts” which attempts to support the video evidence with sources. The majority of the sources, however, are pamphlets from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an organization with an anti-marijuana bias. They hardly cite any objective content. If someone went to the “Stoners in the Mist” website to attempt to find valuable information about marijuana, they could be easily confused.

Arguments for marijuana and medical marijuana in the popular media are similarly exaggerated. Movies that portray marijuana users rarely do it in a negative light, and there are documentaries like Doug Benson’s “Super High Me” that attempt to claim that nothing is wrong with marijuana at all, and it’s completely fine to smoke it all of the time. He spent 30 days not getting high, and then 30 days getting high all the time as his support, and his warrants consisted of various tests and doctor evaluations during that time. During his 30 days not smoking, he scored a 980 on the S.A.T, and during his smoking month, he scored 1030. In addition, he had a higher sperm count during the marijuana month, and at the end his physician concluded that constant marijuana smoking for a month didn’t have any adverse effects on his health. While some of these claims have validity (mostly the doctor’s opinion), it still falls short as a great argument that marijuana isn’t harmful. However, it does give off a very strong impression of validity, and given most people’s ability to take anything they see in a “documentary” as truth, this could turn into a very misleading piece of information. A truly good argument would have had to involve different types of marijuana users (not just none and all the time) and also different situations (people with actual jobs and responsibilities, not just working on a movie about smoking marijuana).

With propaganda in the multimedia world coming from both sides unable to be trusted entirely, let’s now look at print, hopefully a place where better arguments will reside.
The Independent, a national daily in Britain, launched a campaign in 1997 to decriminalize marijuana. A couple years ago they took that campaign back with an “apology,” where they reveal the research findings that changed their mind on the issue. Their claim is that marijuana has changed over the years—that new strains of the drug are being created that are more powerful than ever, and, they argue, more dangerous.

They support this with hard facts and quotes from doctors: “The number of young people in treatment [for cannabis] almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006.” “Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at London's Institute of Psychiatry, estimates that at least 25,000 of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK could have avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis.” They also talk about some research that will be published later and show that “cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.”

While this is clearly a stronger argument against marijuana use and legalization than “Stoners in the Mist,” it lacks a good amount of context, and leaves a ton of unanswered questions. Were the people in treatment for cannabis using other drugs as well, or just marijuana? What about the schizophrenics—was marijuana the sole cause for their disease, or did it merely exaggerate an existing condition? Their warrants for their claim are strong, but in the end the piece comes off as sounding sensationalistic and fear-mongering, lacking any real world context for all of their statistics and “expert opinions.”

The New York Times, on the other hand, argues for marijuana’s benefits in an editorial claiming that medical marijuana laws are just. They argue at the start through an appeal to pathos, presenting the character of Ed Rosenthal—a man who is being prosecuted for growing marijuana for use by the seriously ill. They cite that “Doctors have long recognized marijuana's value in reducing pain and aiding in the treatment of cancer and AIDS, among other diseases,” and that “the reasons the government gives for objecting to it do not outweigh the good it does.”
Unlike The Independent’s article, they support their claim about medical marijuana well with real life-examples, but this one falls short when it comes to statistics and expert opinions: there aren’t any. “Doctors,” is an extremely vague term, and “the good it does” is very vague. The article makes some good appeals, but others just don’t make the cut.

Looking at all this information, it is clear that someone trying to make an informed decision on a medical marijuana or marijuana legalization bill would be very confused. How can a drug that causes schizophrenia according to one article do so much good in another? If a medicine has the side effect of making its taker go insane, would it really be allowed to function as a medicine? If marijuana does cause users to do nothing all day every day like “Stoners in the Mist” attempts to convince its audience of, why are there people who smoke weed and do creative things like make movies and write songs about it, and why is it such a popular drug? Clearly there has to be more to it than the anti-marijuana propaganda will make you believe, and clearly it’s not the miracle drug like some medical-marijuana advocates and doctors would have you believe—with the ability to solve a laundry list of psychical and mental problems.

The only thing that will further the discussion on cannabis to the point where real conclusions can be drawn is more unbiased research. Unfortunately, that won’t be able to happen until the federal government changes its mind on the drug. As of right now, the only way to get legal marijuana to research is from them, and the process is long, complicated, and yields a very week, single strain of the drug—nothing like what is available on the street or in cannabis clubs in medical marijuana states. To create a better research environment politicians need to work to get the federal standpoint changed, and for that to happen the general public needs to receive accurate information so they can lobby their politicians effectively.


Works Cited
The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Dir. Judd Apatow. Perf. Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Catherine Keener. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2005.
Advertisement. Above the Influence. 29 Jan. 2009 .
The New York Times editorial board. "Misguided Marijuana War." The New York Times 4 Feb. 2003. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Owen, Jonathan. "Cannabis: An apology." The Independent 18 Mar. 2007. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Reefer Madness. Dir. Louis Gasnier. Prod. Dwain Esper. Perf. Thelma White and Carleton Young. DVD. Motion Picture Ventures, 1936.
"Stoners in the Mist." Above the Influence. National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. 29 Jan. 2009 .
Super High Me. Dir. Michael Blieden. Prod. Alex Campbell. Perf. Doug Benson. DVD. Bside entertainment, 2008.

D-I

“The root of education is bitter, but sweet are its fruits,” said Isocrates. While the process of learning can be dull, sometimes boring, and sometimes difficult. What you get out of it, however, is what matters. The knowledge you gain, the experiences you have, that is what’s important.

 

As Seattle U transitions into Division I, it would be wise of all of our athletes and the general student population to keep this saying in mind. We’re still essentially learning to be a D-I school. Just because our basketball games aren’t broadcast nationally and our locker rooms and sports facilities aren’t world-class doesn’t mean that they won’t be in the future, and just because our students don’t get revved up about the games and come out in large numbers to support the sports teams doesn’t mean that nobody cares.

 

Our sports teams are the ones doing the bulk of the learning: learning how to be on the road for most of their games, learning how to play under the pressure of a television broadcast, and, most importantly, learning how to play basketball with the big boys. While most of the student body may see the matchup with University of Washington coming up as a joke, the players in the game need to see it as a chance to prove themselves. Even if they lose, the team can still prove that Seattle U can put up a decent fight against a Pac-10 powerhouse. Our records are close to the same, but the teams we’ve been playing pale in comparison to them

 

Along the road to success there’s bound to be some hard times. While SU sports may struggle in the coming years to find their place in NCAA division 1, they deserve time to learn. And just like the quote says, while the learning period may be bitter, the fruits will be very sweet. Who knows, maybe we’ll see Seattle U in NCAA March Madness in the next 10 years. Those would be fruits worth eating.

 

 

Major Analysis Paper Rough Draft

A legitimate business with all the proper state permits was raided in broad daylight by DEA agents. Pamphlets at student health centers say marijuana can cause schizophrenia, but the common image of a marijuana user is a docile, giggly person—not an insane one. Marijuana use, and its possible medical applications, has been a constant debate in the political world for years. As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws the federal government also increases their efforts to shut the dispensaries down and spread information discouraging people to vote for future bills. The problem, however, is that the messages being sent to the general public about marijuana are extremely conflicting. The pro and anti-marijuana sides of the debate both exaggerate facts, over generalize, and use questionable tactics to draw supporters. The question that becomes important then, is: who do you believe? It’s important for people who are voting on bills to have accurate information about what they are voting for, and with marijuana, that is not usually the case.

Disinformation has been spread around about marijuana ever since the drive to get it banned in the 1930’s. “Reefer Madness,” the famous 30’s exploitation film scared parents into thinking their children would enter a “drug-crazed abandon” if they ever got high. On the other hand, the list of ailments you can get a marijuana prescription for in California far outnumbers almost any other drug, making it out to be some miracle plant. Clearly the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

The way marijuana is portrayed in the media is one of the primary reasons for this confusion. TV ads and other media from organizations like “Above the Influence,” and the National Institute on Drug Abuse attempt to characterize weed-smokers as boring, anti-social, and prone to being nothing but couch potatoes, but popular movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” and “Super High Me” show their main characters getting high and doing the exact opposite: being social and having interesting conversations. It’s also rare that characters in movies or television will encounter negative consequences relating to marijuana, whereas when harder drugs are involved that’s almost always the case.

“Stoners in the Mist” is a series of short Internet videos created by Above The Influence, aimed at capturing YouTube era adolescents and other people who might not be influenced easily by TV commercials. Its goal is obvious: convincing people that marijuana shouldn’t be used. Its claim is that “stoners” are lazy, forgetful, and anti-social. The warrants for the claim they present are many, but are mostly fairly shallow. The video pieces that provide the support are shorts shot in the style of a nature documentary, featuring a host that’s reminiscent of the Crocodile Hunter. They claim that marijuana makes you “sedentary, uninspired, remarkably unmotivated,” and show through their clips marijuana users having difficulty with simple social interactions, being oblivious to their psychical appearance, and spending days sitting in the same place watching television.

Their support and warrants, however, come across as extremely inaccurate. The majority of the way they warrant their claims is through visual evidence, which in this case is obviously staged. These aren’t real “stoners,” but actors paid to pretend to conform to the lazy stoner stereotype. The website also makes the claim that stoners have “extreme difficulty fitting in to social groups,” but again only provides an over-the-top sketch to support that claim, where a “normal person” tries to make conversation with a stoner, who is too out of it to even remember his name. The only real warrants offered on the website is a small section called “marijuana: the facts” which attempts to support the video evidence with sources. The majority of the sources, however, are pamphlets from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an organization with an anti-marijuana bias. They hardly cite any objective content. If someone went to the “Stoners in the Mist” website to attempt to find valuable information about marijuana, they could be easily confused.

Arguments for marijuana and medical marijuana in the popular media are similarly exaggerated. Movies that portray marijuana users rarely do it in a negative light, and there are documentaries like Doug Benson’s “Super High Me” that attempt to claim that nothing is wrong with marijuana at all, and it’s completely fine to smoke it all of the time. He spent 30 days not getting high, and then 30 days getting high all the time as his support, and his warrants consisted of various tests and doctor evaluations during that time. During his 30 days not smoking, he scored a 980 on the S.A.T, and during his smoking month, he scored 1030. In addition, he had a higher sperm count during the marijuana month, and at the end his physician concluded that constant marijuana smoking for a month didn’t have any adverse effects on his health. While some of these claims have validity (mostly the doctor’s opinion), it still falls short as a great argument that marijuana isn’t harmful. However, it does give off a very strong impression of validity, and given most people’s ability to take anything they see in a “documentary” as truth, this could turn into a very misleading piece of information. A truly good argument would have had to involve different types of marijuana users (not just none and all the time) and also different situations (people with actual jobs and responsibilities, not just working on a movie about smoking marijuana).

With propaganda in the multimedia world coming from both sides unable to be trusted entirely, let’s now look at print, hopefully a place where better arguments will reside.

The Independent, a national daily in Britain, launched a campaign in 1997 to decriminalize marijuana. A couple years ago they took that campaign back with an “apology,” where they reveal the research findings that changed their mind on the issue. Their claim is that marijuana has changed over the years—that new strains of the drug are being created that are more powerful than ever, and, they argue, more dangerous.

They support this with hard facts and quotes from doctors: “The number of young people in treatment [for cannabis] almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006.” “Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at London's Institute of Psychiatry, estimates that at least 25,000 of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK could have avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis.” They also talk about some research that will be published later and show that “cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.”

While this is clearly a stronger argument against marijuana use and legalization than “Stoners in the Mist,” it lacks a good amount of context, and leaves a ton of unanswered questions. Were the people in treatment for cannabis using other drugs as well, or just marijuana? What about the schizophrenics—was marijuana the sole cause for their disease, or did it merely exaggerate an existing condition? Their warrants for their claim are strong, but in the end the piece comes off as sounding sensationalistic and fear-mongering, lacking any real world context for all of their statistics and “expert opinions.”

The New York Times, on the other hand, argues for marijuana’s benefits in an editorial claiming that medical marijuana laws are just. They argue at the start through an appeal to pathos, presenting the character of Ed Rosenthal—a man who is being prosecuted for growing marijuana for use by the seriously ill. They cite that “Doctors have long recognized marijuana's value in reducing pain and aiding in the treatment of cancer and AIDS, among other diseases,” and that “the reasons the government gives for objecting to it do not outweigh the good it does.”
Unlike The Independent’s article, they support their claim about medical marijuana well with real life-examples, but this one falls short when it comes to statistics and expert opinions: there aren’t any. “Doctors,” is an extremely vague term, and “the good it does” is very vague. The article makes some good appeals, but others just don’t make the cut.

Looking at all this information, it is clear that someone trying to make an informed decision on a medical marijuana or marijuana legalization bill would be very confused. How can a drug that causes schizophrenia according to one article do so much good in another? If a medicine has the side effect of making its taker go insane, would it really be allowed to function as a medicine? If marijuana does cause users to do nothing all day every day like “Stoners in the Mist” attempts to convince its audience of, why are there people who smoke weed and do creative things like make movies and write songs about it, and why is it such a popular drug? Clearly there has to be more to it than the anti-marijuana propaganda will make you believe, and clearly it’s not the miracle drug like some medical-marijuana advocates and doctors would have you believe—with the ability to solve a laundry list of psychical and mental problems.

The only thing that will further the discussion on cannabis to the point where real conclusions can be drawn is more unbiased research. Unfortunately, that won’t be able to happen until the federal government changes its mind on the drug. As of right now, the only way to get legal marijuana to research is from them, and the process is long, complicated, and yields a very week, single strain of the drug—nothing like what is available on the street or in cannabis clubs in medical marijuana states. To create a better research environment politicians need to work to get the federal standpoint changed, and for that to happen the general public needs to receive accurate information so they can lobby their politicians effectively.