10,000 Pot Smokers and the First Amendment
With a headline, like that, we've got to be talking about the University of Colorado. From the Colorado Daily:
Shutting down the University of Colorado's campus to visitors Friday thwarts the public's right to protest government policy, Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Monday.
CU announced last week that the grassy area of Norlin Quad -- which in past years has drawn more than 10,000 people for the unsanctioned 4/20 marijuana smoke-out -- will be closed entirely, and the school will apply a fish-based fertilizer to the lawn.
The entire CU-Boulder campus will be closed to the public, except for visitors who have gained permission ahead of time.
Silverstein was mum Monday as to whether the ACLU will resort to legal action to fight the closure, saying it's his office's policy to not talk to the press about lawsuits that are not filed. But he raised serious concerns about the university's tactics.
"By closing the campus to visitors, establishing checkpoints, assigning uniformed officers to check papers and threatening arrests of visitors without proper credentials, the university does a disservice to the values that underlie the First Amendment and the constitutionally protected right to dissent," he said.
Fish-based fertilizer? Someone in the CU-Boulder administration has been nursing a grudge against the campus hippie contingent for some time.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: 10,000 Pot Smokers and the First Amendment
Free Speech does not entitle you to hang on someone else's property.
May '11
Re: 10,000 Pot Smokers and the First Amendment
You have a right to say what you want. You do not have a right to have private citizens or organizations like or support it.
May '10
Re: 10,000 Pot Smokers and the First Amendment
I think choosing 4/20 to tend to the lawn is a great move. "Oh, did you mean to use it that day without registering? Sorry?
Dec '10
Re: 10,000 Pot Smokers and the First Amendment
Murdering fish to stop pot smoking. Will they stop at nothing?