Who knows? Do they piss test you? What type of test is it? Who has any ideas?

Ok so I know now...not to ever smoke in the dorm. I thought I had taken all of the necessary precautions, window open, fan on, air spray...but I leave to go get some munchies at the diner, I come back and AHHHHH!!! Po-Po'z everywhere. I so wanted to run, but they saw me. Nothing is a bigger buzz kill than 2 cops up in your face.Plus, the whole hallway smelt like sticky ganja, I was like DAMN, I thought I had that covered! So I wanted to break down and cry, but I didn't. They confiscated the two joints I had, luckily, I left my bong and bowl at my house in dundalk:-) But, they did take my nice arse buhdahh(<--?) stash box...lame. so, now I have about 7 hearings to go to, 3 for housing status and 3 for student stauts, plus the state charge for posession of drug paraphenalia( rolling papers). The school is charging me with the former as well as possession of an illegal controlled substance. I am pissed, I will not go to rehab for 2 joints, I will not pay for my own fucking piss testing, I would much rather leave this damn school and smoke in the privacy of my own damn privacy! They act like I am the only one to smoke up, whatever. Because I was so cooperative, the state lowered my charges and did not take me to jail, or charge me with possession, just paraphenalia. But the school wants to drag this out, I am quite frustrated and infuriated by the whole topic. The good thing is the school provides free legal aide. But, I did learn one thing, PLEAD THE MOTHER FU*KING 5th, NO NEED TO CONVICT YOURSELF, LET THE EVIDENCE DO THAT. Don't let them in your dorm, don't let them make you feel sorry about losing your entire college career, don't tell them shit. keep your mouth shut, so what if you smell like weed and have blood shot eyes, they need substantial evidence. I am so angry, they keep telling me I am going to get kicked out of housing and I may lose my right to be a student. The funny thing is, I was a spring transfer, I got caught the second week after I moved in here!!!! Screw 'em all!

After the first month of my sophomore year of college, living in Chestertown Hall, I had cut back on smoking a great deal from the previous year. On one of the rare occasions I smoked that month, I took a walk with a joint behind the gyms. It was almost midnight on a very quiet night of the week. We finished about 1/3 of the joint when we got near the climbing wall, I spotted a cop on a bike from about 60 yards away. I told my friend to toss it, so he did and then he stepped it out on the grass between the gym and the climbing wall fence. We continued walking, and 10 to 15 seconds later walked on the grass to make room for the officer on the bike to pass us.

As he passed, he asked if we always litter like that. We replied, no. Then he said he smelled dope and instructed us to put our hands on the wall. We were detained for at least 10 minutes holding the bricks, waiting for back-up. Upon the arrival of three more officers in two vehicles, we were searched and we had nothing else on us. But they searched a large area of the grass, and found the remains of our joint. They counted the number of steps from the sidewalk the joint was, to match up with the number of steps the officer on the bike saw my friend take.

We were arrested, spent a night in jail, released in the morning, just in time to make it to my quiz during my second class. I am a computer science major and due to excellent summer jobs was able to afford a lawyer. In court I was granted Probation Before Judgment so that after I completed all University of Maryland punishments, my charges would be dropped. This ended up being a 6-week drug education class, that I felt was run fairly well (all things considered), and a year and a half of random drug testing. It would have been a year, but one of the few times I forgot to call (in the two times a week for one and a half years), my number was called and I received another half-year on this testing. And I was one of the only people I knew who actually did not smoke for the entire time I was on drug testing...it is common for students to smoke occasionally at the beginning of long vacations (or pleeeeennty more frequently if they really want to).

During my night in jail, a detective grilled me for a while about where I got the pot, etc. Using scare tactics he frequently reminded me that I could be facing up to a year in prison for the posession of my joint which contained less than one gram of marijuana. Since I did not know my rights when this happened, he was able to convince me that I did not have a choice but to sign permission for them to search my dorm, even though I was not caught there. Now I know I could have easily refused the search and wait to see if they get a warrant from a judge.

The detective also told me he would cut a deal with me and that if I introduced two dealers to one of their undercover police agents, then he would have the charges dropped. I did not choose this route, but I have spoken with students who have, and have heard cases of detectives not holding up there end of the deal. I advise you not to cooperate on any such level.

I feel that what a person puts in their own body should not be governed unless their conduct harms others.

So I went to Taiwan for a week and a half in January and learned a bit about marijuana in their culture. Walking through night markets I would often see big weed-leaf chains in silver, gold, bling, whatever and at first I was like damn, alllright. But as I saw kids walking on the street wearing such things, I'd give them a look, sometimes obviously reacting to their chain. But none of them seemed to react any differently than just seeing some white guy walking around.

I talked to my friend who has lived there for a year and a half and he said that although they take a liking to many random elements of our culture, they do not always understand what it means, despite all the music and movie references our country pumps out. It was interesting. Marijuana is not big over there at all, apparently the compressed plants my friend got were at least double the prices we are used to because it is apparently largely from Canada and half of it gets caught at the border.

On of my friends there had a Taiwanese girlfriend, who was chill with us smoking, though she didn't understand it much. He told me that every time another friend from America visits and smokes with him, his girlfriend is so surprised, "that friend smokes too?!" surprised at what a common thing it is among a large partition of our age-group over here in USA.

9/17/07

 Here are (some) of the ways you can get raffle tickets:

 1 ticket: print your own agenda to bring to the meeting (I email it a day or two ahead of time, email me to get on the listserv), report on marijuana-related media at the meeting, send pictures of NORML-related activity to normlterps@gmail.com

2 tickets: send pictures of chalking to normlterps@gmail.com, bring a friend who is new to NORML to a meeting/event, per 1 hour tabling or doing office hours (email me to get on the office key list)

3 tickets: report on a marijuana policy related book at a meeting, report on another student group meeting you attended, blind copy normlterps@gmail.com on an op-ed/article/column sent to the Diamondback

4 tickets: attend and report on an SGA meeting

5 tickets: work an event, print 20 flyers, join NORML Terps

 

Let me know if you have other ideas... 

 

 

 

In an attempt to get us online more, where it's easy to post information available to everyone, I will be putting up a post in the announcements each week, whether it's trivia, something you have to do or look up, or bringing something to the next meeting, every week there will be opportunities to win prizes. (Which at the very least will include hemp bracelets, buttons and pins, stickers, Reefer Magnets, books, rolling papers, DVDs, lighters, and other such gifts..)

 

This week, all you have to do to get a pack of rolling papers is come by the office we just moved into in the Stamp Student Union. We are located in the Student Involvement Suite, 0207D (to the left and around the corner when you walk in.) Come by today (the 6th), Monday, or Tuesday between 3:30 and 5:30 to check out the office and give me a chance to meet you guys individually. Your prize for this is a pack of clear aLeda rolling papers...yay! But of course, you can come by those times any week for free and I will be there. See you this week!

 

Short attention span version:

I have scheduled office hours at these times, and will definitely be there:

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 3:30-5:30, and Wednesdays 10:00-12:15, and 3:15-4. Come visit Suite 0207D in the Stamp Student Union!

(First meeting is Thursday, August 30th at 7:30pm in the Benjamin Banneker room of Stamp)

Here is a map of the Stamp Student Union; all meetings are on the second floor. When in doubt...ask the Information Desk

September 13, 8:30 Pyon Su <-- This is a weird meeting time and place!!

September 20, 7:30 Margaret Brent

September 27, 7:30 Benjamin Banneker

 

See you all there!

-Amanda 

Hey NORML Terps!

If you're new to the site, sign up so you can use all the features. If you've been here before, this is now where meeting descriptions will be posted, and where you should check before meetings for updates, especially since we move rooms for meetings a few times this semester. Thanks!

-Amanda