U-Md. Students Vote to Soften Pot Penalties

Many on campus hadn't heard about the ballot question. Some were shocked when they did. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous if you're at college and you're smoking marijuana," freshman Dane Friedman said.

He thinks the referendum results could hurt the school's image and the atmosphere on campus if students start thinking they can get away with smoking up all the time.

College administrators across the country have been trying for decades to find solutions to the sometimes ridiculous, sometimes annoying, sometimes tragic problems that drinking and drugs bring to campus.

Smoke-ins at U-Md. in the 1970s gave way in the 1980s to a much stricter policy, put in place after basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. That's when administrators set the rules in place today, which John Zacker of the university's student misconduct office said are more severe than at many other schools.

Students caught with drugs at U-Md. face a one-year suspension, depending on the circumstances, and those who live in campus housing almost always are forced to move out, he said.

The university does offer some alternatives, including education and ongoing drug testing, rather than suspension, to give students with minor offenses a chance to learn from mistakes.

Students are much less likely to get suspended or to lose housing for alcohol violations, Zacker said. Those who do often have other violations along with drinking.

The school, with about 35,000 students, has hundreds of liquor violations every year and fewer than 100 drug violations, he said.

Nichols and Victor Pinho, a fellow advocate, are part of the generation that grew up with the "war on drugs" and DARE classes. And they see it as a moral issue.

"The average marijuana user does not have the impetus to stand on a sofa and scream, 'Legalize marijuana!' " said Nichols, a government and politics major from Bowie, who, like Pinho, has a job lined up when he graduates this spring. "It's easier to live their life and do their own thing."

Not him. This year he and Pinho, who head the U-Md. chapters of Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, "came together, blew it up, made it public, gave it legs."

They spent the beginning of this week tooling around campus in a decorated campaign golf cart to get out the vote, offering students rides, hemp bracelets and propaganda.

Yesterday, Pinho said this is just the beginning.

"Next stop," he said, "the White House!"