Researchers say marijuana use on the rise; users embrace drug as easy high

Sarah Bricker broke a pact with herself more than a year ago.

"I was so mad at myself," said the RC sophomore, of her struggle to stay off marijuana and other drugs. "I was clean, and then I broke being clean, and I felt stupid for smoking the last joint."

Today, Bricker said, her life is different.

"I think drugs are unnecessary to have a good time," she said. "There's so much stuff that you can't do when you're high. My favorite quotation, since quitting drugs, is, 'So, what do you do?' As if drugs are the only things in the world you can do,

KEVIN KRUPITZER/Daily An assemblage of various smoking paraphernalia sit on a table. Merchants who sell such items say they are used for tobacco products.

" Bricker said.

They may not be the only thing you can do, but many students say they are a fulfilling pastime - especially marijuana.

MaryJane, grass, weed, cannibus, cheba, are just a few names for the substance that has risen greatly among college students.

According to the national Monitoring the Future Study by the University's Institute of Social Research, marijuana has accounted for much of the overall increase in illicit drug use in the latter part of the '90s.

A survey conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that drug violations have increased at colleges and universities by 34 percent. Among college students, there was an increase in use from 29 percent of students in 1991 to 31 percent in 1993, according to a survey of 1,500 students surveyed by MFS.

Some said that smoking a joint has become as common as cigarettes and beer.

"You see it everywhere," said LSA senior Jeff Kurson. "People aren't really cautious (about using it). It's treated just like smoking a cigarette or drinking a beer. For the most part, people don't even look twice when someone's smoking."

One reason given by MFS as to why there has been an increase is the erosion of peer norms against drug use. Fewer people are seeing marijuana as dangerous, perhaps because fewer dangers have been presented. Today, there is less federal funding for drug abuse prevention, and news coverage on drug issues has greatly dwindled, stated an MFS release.

Pop culture may be partially the cause of the increase of marijuana use among college students. MFS states in its data and a press release from December 1996, that rap and rock musicians have started to send pro-drug messages through their lyrics and music videos. Lyrics from popular songs such as Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Gin and Juice" and Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How it Feels" may lead young people to have a more accepting attitude toward marijuana, MFS states.

An LSA junior who did not want to be named said the media and pop culture make it more acceptable to smoke marijuana.

"Role models, such as star basketball players getting caught with ounces of weed in their trunks, make it more acceptable for kids to do it," the LSA junior said. "Although it's more acceptable, it's still illegal, and cops come down hard on kids caught with pot."

Ann Arbor's annual Hash Bash helps contribute to the city's image of having a liberal attitude toward the drug.

An LSA junior who professed smoking marijuana said perceptions about Ann Arbor are merely a throw back to the hippie era.

"It's just a hippie thing carried over from the last 40 years, and the correlative Wutang culture," the LSA junior said. "Ann Arbor's average cross section of the student population is more made up of rich, spoiled kids from the affluent suburbs of the United States. Ann Arbor isn't any more of a pot town than any other college campus. I do have problems getting pot sometimes."

But for those who are caught with marijuana, the repercussions can be severe.

Mandatory minimum sentences are enforced on several offenses. A person must serve a five-year, mandatory-minimum sentence if federally convicted of cultivating 100 marijuana plants. This sentence is longer than the average sentence for auto theft and manslaughter.

Department of Public Safety spokesperson Elizabeth Hall said possession is a misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in prison and/or a $2,000 fine.

"If a person is caught with plants, the penalty depends on the quantity and circumstance," Hall said. "It depends if they were manufacturing with the intent to distribute."

Laws change depending on the where in Ann Arbor a person gets caught with marijuana. A one-year minimum prison sentence is given for manufacturing or distributing marijuana within 1,000 feet of any school, university or playground. Many areas in Ann Arbor fall within these "drug free zones."

"DPS enforces state law if you are on University property and a University police officer observes you with marijuana," Hall said. "You would be prosecuted under state law, not the Ann Arbor city ordinance, which gives a $25 fine. It seems that people get really confused with that - there is a large difference from up to a year in prison and a 25 dollar fine."

Ann Arbor resident and high school student Karen Gilgenbach said Hash Bash is a lot about individuals presenting an image.

"This Hash Bash - all that is, is proving to people that you're not scared to do drugs," Gilgenbach said. "Everything is about proving they're fearless."

In recent years, DPS made about 50 arrests at each Hash Bash - most of them made on non-students. Before, police only occasionally handed out citations at the spring gathering, which has been an annually affair since the 1970s.

Hall said the majority of DPS marijuana arrests are made during Hash Bash. "(About 90) arrests are made during Hash Bash for drug violations," Hall said. "Only 110 arrests were made during the whole year for drug violations. Of those, only three were affiliated with the University."

One LSA junior said Ann Arbor's drug penalties reflect the town's liberal image. He added, however, that most University students are more focused on academics than on drugs.

"In the '60s, if you were caught with marijuana, you received a $2 fine, a slap on the wrist," the LSA junior said. "Now, it's a $25 fine, which reflects on how this campus is pretty much liberal.

"I don't think the reflection is correct," the LSA junior continued. "Everyone is studious. It's an image thing with Michigan saying that we are a liberal school, with the Naked Mile and Hash Bash. It's trying to come across like the balance of the best of both worlds, while in all honesty, it's just kids trying to do well in school."

Stephen Strobbe, nurse coordinator at the Chelsea Arbor Treatment Center, said it is important to note that college students today haven't been exposed to the negative effects marijuana had on young people during the 1960s. Strobbe said his patients were often given bad examples by parents who smoked marijuana in their homes.

"We'll sometimes have students in treatment who live in households where the parents use marijuana or other drugs," Strobbe said.

There are many health hazards associated with the lack of quality control standards with marijuana. Marijuana is often mixed with much more damaging substances, such as pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other harder drugs like LSD or PCP. Some marijuana is infected with molds, fungi or bacteria.

Just the inhalation of hot smoke is one of the hazard of marijuana use. The inhalation of burning vegetable matter is bad for the respiratory system, Strobbe said.

"There are very caustic agents in burning marijuana," Strobbe said. "There are over 800 chemical compounds in burning marijuana. Some are known carcinogens."

Marijuana actually can aggravate or be a contributing factor to the onset of schizophrenia or other disorders.

"For those predisposed with depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders, their tolerance may be marketably lower than the average population," Strobbe said. "Marijuana increases pulse rate and can trigger episodes of anxiety attacks."

Some point to the proliferation of marijuana-related paraphenelia being sold on campus as an indicator of how marijuana has permeated the Ann Arbor scene.

Employees at Stairway to Heaven, a State Street business, say the pipes and bongs they sell are strictly for tobacco use. The business also sells cigarette papers, ostensibly used to roll cigarettes.

"Of course - obviously - they're all for tobacco use only. Our customers wouldn't use them for anything else," said one employee, referring to the store's pipes, which range in price from $10-$400.

Obtaining drugs on campus may not be as difficult as police would like.

"If you don't know immediately where to get it, you know someone who does," Bricker said.

Kim Ares, an Ann Arbor resident who plans to transfer to the Art School in January, said marijuana is very common in social situations. "If you don't ask, someone will always mention it," she said. "I've gone to two schools and I think it's pretty common at any school."

One LSA sophomore said that getting a hold of marijuana on campus is "very easy."

"There's no problem with that here," she said.

Strobbe said that there are various reasons a student might try marijuana for the first time - "curiosity, adventure, social reasons," he said.

One 23-year-old Ann Arbor resident said he uses marijuana every day because it serves as a release for him. "I think because of the nature of it, it makes you more analytical," he said.

The man said he would stop smoking marijuana if he felt it was interfering in his daily life. "I would quit if I felt like it was in the way of anything I wanted to do," he said. "A lot of times, if I've got stuff to do. I wait until the end of the day."

LSA junior Evelyn Stokes said marijuana use is "something that should be dealt with by the University. Of course, it obviously has a huge negative effect on anyone who's a regular smoker," she said.

Stokes said the University should be taking more action to curb drug use on campus. "There are a lot of issues that receive attention at the University that are probably not as deserving as the attention of drug use. I don't see a lot of that trying to be stopped at Michigan," Stokes said.

The question remains, however, why students choose to smoke marijuana: Words used to describe the feeling of being high range from "zoned, relaxed, fuzzy," to "sleepy" and "kooky."

First-year Medical student Michael Hines said he hasn't smoked marijuana since high school. He said it made him feel "tired, unmotivated."

SARA STILLMAN/Daily
A participant partakes of marijuana at the April, 1995 Hash Bash. Students and residents say the annual marijuana legalization rally presents a distorted portrait of Ann Arbor's social attitudes.

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