Drug Free Boulder Coalition

Andrew Birney Tyler Luff Andrew Finch

M. Zizzi WRTG 3040 May 2nd, 2012

[POSITION PAPER]

Drug Free Boulder Coalition

[POSITION PAPER]

The Drug Free Boulder Coalition

BACKGROUND Where does 4/20 come from? The answer to this question has become a clouded memory to the people who initiated the phenomenon. Although there are many theories regarding the origin of the event, there is a general consensus that it began in San Rafael, California in the early 70s (Grim, 2010). A group of five high school friends called the Waldos never imagined that the term 4/20 they coined would eventually spread across the globe. The Waldos started using the term as a reference indicating the time that they would meet after school and go smoke. It soon progressed to essentially relate to any and everything marijuana (Grim, 2010). The craze soon found its way to Boulder and to the University of Colorados campus. In 2002 several hundred people gathered in a parking lot and held a smoke out on April 20th, at 4:20 (History of 4/20, 2010). Since inception, the event has continued to grow. Drawing over 20,000 people in 2011, CU Boulder hosts the largest 4/20 gathering around the country (History of 4/20, 2010). One could assume that an event comprised of thousands of marijuana smokers would be very relaxed and peaceful, and for the most part it is, but the unintended and unanticipated consequences that result from this annual event should not be taken lightly. THE PROBLEM Every year school officials send out a letter on the 19th of April warning students to not participate in, or attend the 4/20 gathering on Norlin Quad. The letter directly addresses the issues of costs incurred by the university, the amount of non-CU affiliated attendants, the devaluation of a University of Colorado degree, and the events party atmosphere (Bruno, 2011). From a financial

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perspective, the event has been labeled an outrageous waste of money by CU Regent Michael Carrigan (Anas & Whitney, 2010) which forces the University of Colorado to incur significant costs. The annual $55,000 expenditure is allocated towards police overtime pay, crowd control, traffic attendants and rental fees to maintain a safe environment (Anas & Whitney, 2010). As time has passed, the unsanctioned event has also grown dramatically in both size and cost. Although estimates of total turnout vary widely, the required police presence has also experienced a sharp increase and is expected to grow in the future (Vittert, 2009). Similarly, attempts to disrupt the smoke-out gathering with sprinklers in the past resulted in thousands of dollars of damage to Farrand Field (History of 4/20, 2010). Current plans to host a free concert as a legal alternative for students have also cost the university approximately $150,000 (Roberts, 2012). However, Bronson Hilliard makes clear the concert will be much cheaper than hiring up to 10,000 officers to quash the smoke-out at an estimated cost of $250,000 (Roberts, 2012). More importantly, expenditures to manage the event are not earmarked during the annual budget-setting process, so all financial pitfalls must be met with cuts in other areas. As one article points out, the university has already absorbed $50 million cuts over the past two years resulting in a tough economic climate for the event (Anas & Whitney, 2010). For years, the overarching stereotype at the University of Colorado at Boulder has revolved around stoner students who habitually smoke marijuana. The perpetuation of this stereotype can be directly linked to the infamous 4/20 gathering that has gained national notoriety. The social repercussions of this stoner stereotype and subsequently the schools party label create a harmful and inaccurate stigma that could follow CU graduates into the job market. The Drug Free Boulder Coalition maintains that the illegal event denigrates the value of students degrees by generating national media attention that fuels the stereotype across the country.

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In a survey conducted by the University of Colorado Student Government, (Vittert, 2009) 75 percent of students expressed concern over 4/20s impact on the schools reputation. In the past year, Newsweek and Playboy named CU the Druggiest College in America and Top Party School in the Nation each citing the massive marijuana holiday for the top ranking. Many students believe that the school has a stigma as result of the 4/20 gathering that contributes to its high rankings on lists of party and drug schools. Online searches of "CU-Boulder" pop up images or videos of 4/20, and a photo of the campus gathering even made its way into an edition of Times Magazine Pictures of the Year. Is this really how we want our University and academic degree to be perceived? OUR OBJECTIVES As a core objective, the Drug Free Boulder Coalition sought to educate the student body by raising awareness of the real costs attached to the 4/20 gathering. Although the event has gained increased public attention in recent years, our group aimed to inform students from a different angle. Since we expected few students would be aware of the unsanctioned events annual cost to the university, we anticipated educating the student body would cause some 4/20 participants to make more responsible choices on their own. Using as many outlets as possible, our group made it a goal to channel as much information as possible to our student audience. In similar fashion, documenting the event was also an important objective to accomplish for the DFBC. As an unsanctioned and controversial event, our group anticipated constant research would be required in order to stay current during the course of our awareness campaign. We made it our goal to stay up-to-date on all media publications, including newspapers and television sources leading up to 4/20 event. Additionally, we aimed to provide photographic evidence due to the lack of reliable data available. Overall, the DFBC was confident detailed documentation would serve as a valuable benchmark to judge our progress.

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Our third goal focused on providing an alternative event for students to spend their time constructively. In general, our goal was to create a safe and healthy place for students not attending the event. Since the 4/20 smoke-out was traditionally the only campus event of the day, our group realized an alternative was needed to fill the gap. We made it our goal to promote a healthy discussion and the sharing of ideas. By involving as many different viewpoints as possible, we were confident new and innovative solutions could be reached. Our final object was designed to take advantage of our group members specialized background in the fields of accounting and finance. After gathering past information about the 4/20 event we planned to estimate future school expenditures. Although all of our calculations would only yield estimates, we decided our financial backgrounds would shed credible light on the complicated subject. Additionally, given recent trends toward school budget cuts, our group wanted to demonstrate how the 4/20 event could impact future years. ACTIONS TAKEN To address our main objective of raising awareness, we developed a social media blog under the domain thedrugfreebouldercoalition.blogspot.com. This was our central conduit for raising awareness where we could channel information seamlessly to the Colorado student body. Through this outlet, we were able to inform the public about our stance on the 4/20 issue and consistently update our audience with breaking news, including procedures the Colorado administration implemented for the 4/20 event. We advertised the blog on Facebook and throughout campus with flyers, posters, and sidewalk chalk. Another way we raised awareness and publicized our blog was by reaching out to several different media outlets and newspapers. After speaking with an editor at The Odyssey, a local newspaper publication popular in the Greek Life community, a contributing writer reached out to us

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via email for an interview. The writer asked our group a few questions about the organization and our mission, which will be used as consideration for an upcoming article in next months issue about the entire 4/20 event. To provide a healthy alternative on 4/20 for students who did not wish to participate in the smoke-out, The Drug Free Boulder Coalition decided to hold an open forum discussion in Norlin Library. After advertising the discussion through flyers around campus, we gathered at the library at 4:20pm on April 20th to lead an open discussion where students were able to discuss their views and feelings about 4/20 and discuss ideas on how the administration and student-body can address the event in the future. We also spent April 20th documenting the events media coverage and campus activities. Throughout the day our group took pictures and monitored campus for any protests or smoke-out gatherings. We also assessed the local and national medias coverage of the event to gain insight on how the University was portrayed on 4/20 in all forms of publication. We researched students views on the event by creating an online survey which assessed how students felt about 4/20 and the administrations crackdown. The combination of photographic documentation, media analysis, and student surveys served as a valuable point of reference and mode for achieving our objectives. ACHIEVEMENTS Our group based our level of success by the achievements we were able to accomplish as based off of our original objectives and the actions that we took in order to attain said objectives. Our group began initially by setting up an online blog and consistently creating posts in order to keep potential viewers up to date on what our group stood for, as well as any other pertinent information regarding 4/20 we felt would be beneficial for our audience to know. We advertised our blog via flyers, chalking, and Facebook in order to attract as many viewers as possible to our

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blog. As of May 1, our blog had over 1,000 views from people in four different countries- USA, Russia, Malaysia, and Germany. Our group saw this as a huge success and plans to continue updating the blog in order to potentially reach a wider audience. We posted a survey online regarding this years 4/20 event and 87 people responded to our survey. This survey was intended to gain a student perspective on the how the university decided to deal with the event this year. We concluded that people are more inclined to take a simple survey than to leave an actual comment on a blog. Based on the results obtained from our survey, we were able to identify and analyze how the general student body felt regarding 4/20 2012. Approximately 20 percent of students polled agreed with the measures the university took regarding the 4/20 event this year, while 57 percent did not agree, and 23 percent somewhat agreed. 26 percent of students polled felt 4/20 is simply a party, 47 percent felt 4/20 is a protest against anti-marijuana legislation, and the remaining 27 percent viewed the event as an act of civil disobedience. In an attempt to offer students an alternative event replacing the typical 4/20 gathering, our group held an open forum discussion on 4/20. We had to set realistic expectations regarding the attendance, but were hopeful that some people would see our flyers and attend. We were very pleasantly surprised with the 8 people who came by at different points during the time we allotted for the discussion. Considering we assumed that the majority of people at CU would be smoking on 4/20, our open discussion tied in to our goal of providing a viable alternative for students and proved to be another successful achievement. Additionally we reached out to The Odyssey, a local newspaper in order to try and gain media attention surrounding our group, The Drug Free Boulder Coalition. After several attempts to contact the editor, we were finally put in touch with one of the contributing writers for the paper who interviewed our group. Put simply, the interview consisted of what our group was, what we were trying to accomplish and what we had done so far. We later received an email from the paper

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informing us we were under consideration to have a possible section in an article pertaining to 4/20 in the upcoming issue. At this point, we consider this consideration to be a success and strongly hope this article will become a reality in the near future. KEY LEARNINGS This process allowed our group to not only gain a much broader sense of knowledge regarding the costs affiliated with the 4/20 event, but also facilitated group interactions and processes that would not have otherwise occurred. Although our group was previously oblivious, the costs of 4/20 span further than simple monetary hardships the university is forced to deal with. The degradation of a CU degree is something is another true cost of hosting the largest 4/20 gathering in the world. We also learned how the annual costs are allocated, including the time and effort that the university puts in each year. This project allowed for our group to explore the niche of social media at a deeper level than we previously had known. Setting up and maintaining a blog was a challenge we were eventually able to master and explore; by creating this blog we were able to reach out to a previously untapped audience and give them the information that we learned. Despite our success with the blog, raising awareness regarding any subject has more challenges than we ever anticipated. Generating a buzz about a topic requires persistence and numerous outlets in order for people to gain knowledge that it even exists. As a small outnumbered group we discovered that going against the norms of society can create challenges. We discovered as a small group, the best way to be heard is to have a large voice that people will listen to. The idea of a large voice does not simply refer to volume, but rather to utilizing different outlets in order to be heard. The blog along with other social media sites and external sources of advertisement were the best ways we were able to be noticed. These allowed for

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people to gain knowledge about our group, and specifically what we were trying to accomplish. Although we initially thought gaining recognition would be no problem, we found out that it takes a significant amount of time and work in order for people to realize that we not only exist, but to also take an interest in what we were trying to accomplish. In terms of the process, we quickly found out that planning ahead was a key point in getting the work done in a timely manner. Budgeting our time, not only as a group but as individuals, was the best way to accomplish as many of our planned objectives as possible. Although it took some time, we eventually discovered that when we all worked at the same time on different parts of the project, we were able to accomplish significantly more of our tasks, and could use and take key insights from each group member into account in order to better fulfill our objectives. The dynamic and common emphases between our group members permitted us to work efficiently and effectively together in order to finish our project and succeed as a team, and also as an external real life group seeking to raise awareness about 4/20. This project endorsed strong group connections and interworking in order to achieve a common goal. Not only did it allow our group to explore the ins and outs of 4/20 at CU Boulder, but it allowed each member of our group the chance and ability to learn to work as an effectively by utilizing quality intragroup rhetoric. CONCLUSION For years, the infamous 4/20 smoke-out has plagued the reputation of the University of Colorado and forced the administration to annually incur budget cuts and enormous costs. In anticipation of this years 4/20, the Drug Free Boulder Coalition was formed to raise awareness amongst the student body about the costs of the event and its degradation to our degree. Through research, promotional efforts, and the successful use of a social media blog our organization was able to spread our message to over 1,000 unique visitors and provide a healthy alternative to

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students who did not wish to participate in the 4/20 event. The Drug Free Boulder Coalition utilized quality intragroup rhetoric to reach our target audience and spread our message. This year, the administration took the unprecedented move of shutting down the campus on 4/20 to visitors and blocking off Norlin Quad to all students - issuing trespassing tickets to those who violated. As a result, Norlin Quad was empty all day, a major sigh of relief for administrators and those who are against the event. Police estimate that a group of 300 protesters did gather on the field near Duane Physics, however, "that's a lot better than having 10,000 people, shoulder-to-shoulder for several hours in the heart of campus," said Ryan Huff, CU police spokesman. (CU-Boulder: Anti 420, 2012) The efforts to end the event were overall successful and the university gained significant momentum in quashing the unsanctioned event. "I think we took a really important step this year in curtailing this event," said campus spokesman Bronson Hilliard. The Drug Free Boulder Coalition believes that the school is taking a step in the right direction in their attempt at regulating and eventually ending the 4/20 event. We are pleased with the success that we were able to achieve as an awareness group and hope that our contributions will help lead to a higher future.

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REFERENCES Anas, B., & Whitney, B. (2010, April 20). Thousands gathers for 4/20 smoke-out on cu-boulder campus. AAAAARetrieved from http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_14920666 Bruno, F., & Wong , J. (2011, April 19). Party poopers: Cu boulder's 4/20 letter to the students. Retrieved AAAAAfrom http://www.celebstoner.com/201104196690/news/marijuana-news/cu-boulder-420AAAAAAAAAAletter-to-students.html CU-Boulder: Anti-4/20 plan 'effective'. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.denverpost.com/boulder/ci AAAAA_20441285/420-cu-boulder-closure-protests-marijuana Grim, R. (2011, April 20). Huffintonpost . Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com AAAAA/2010/04/20/420-meaning-the-true-stor_n_543854.html History of 4/20 at the University of Colorado. (2010, April 21). Retrieved from AAAAAhttp://420boulder2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/history-of-420-at-university-of.html Roberts, M. (2012, April 6). 4/20: Cu boulder denies crackdown rumors but says cops will be "more active". AAAAARetrieved from http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/04/420 AAAAA_cu_boulder_denies_crackdown_marijuana_police_wyclef_jean.php Vittert, L. (2009, April 20). Police stand by as pot smokers light up at cu. Retrieved from www.kvdr.com

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