For the third year running the Fresno State marijuana club is fighting for the legalisation of marijuana.
The club is part of NORML, the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a non-profit organisation that provides a voice for Americans who oppose marijuana prohibition.
Fresno is just one out of 136 campuses throughout the country to have a NORML group. With eight or ten core members, they can sometimes be seen on campus in the free speech area, handing out information about marijuana.
The president, Jack Welter, 20, a junior criminology major said: “We think that the more people know about this issue, the more likely they are to support it.
“Sometimes people walk by and frown and we’ve had people approach us with arguments. But the more opposed a person is to marijuana generally the less they know about it.”
The club would like marijuana to be legalized for medical, industrial and recreational use, however its main reason for the legalization of marijuana is for its medical use.
“Marijuana is unique in its ability to address nerve pain with very little side effects,” said Welter.
A good number of the members have severe medical conditions that the drug can treat. One member, a former taekwondo champion of Californian highschools, was crippled by Graves' Disease.
Welter said: “He couldn’t conduct his life because he was living under a haze of pharmaceuticals.
“He was able to slowly ease off this pharmaceutical coma and depend entirely on marijuana to address his medical ailments. Now he’s a student and a productive member of society.
“Stories like that are really what the heart of this medical movement are about. It’s people recovering their lives.”
Currently 11 states throughout the country recognise medical marijuana. However, it is a scheduled one drug on the Control Substance Act of 1970 and therefore, has no medical use recognised by the federal government.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, puts marijuana as a high priority for enforcement. This is because they see it as having a high potential for abuse, and do not accept its medical use for treatment in the United States.
According to NORML the availability of marijuana for medical patients is a problem throughout California.
Dispensaries are often struggling because of the conflicts they have with federal law and are shut down on a regular basis.
Welter said: “Many patients are forced to obtain it through going to an unfit neighbourhood and talking to people that they’d rather not associate with.”
Because of this there are a lot of problems with impure marijuana that has been laced with other drugs. “I know a woman who went completely insane,” said Welter. “She smoked some DMT (Dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen) and PCPR marijuana without knowing it.”
Inspired by Martin Luther King when he said: “If you perceive and evil and do nothing you are damned to hell,” Welter is determined to do all he can for the reform of marijuana laws.
He said: “I think that because I can change what I see as an evil I have the obligation to do so.”
As well as tabling in the free speech area, the club also holds a meeting once every two weeks to discuss marijuana issues and make plans for the future.
“Marijuana legalization is a pretty rapidly moving effort,” said Welter. “It’s interesting to see all these different people bringing together their information about what’s going on.”
They would also like to get Snoop Dog out to the campus. Welter said: “It may very well happen. He’s got a good reputation for helping with the legalization of marijuana.”
The next big group event is the 2008 NORML Conference in Berkeley on October 17th. This political conference focuses on the latest marijuana policy developments at both the state and federal levels.
There will also be an array of the leading NORML activists and cannabis law reform organizers from across the country speaking about the cause.
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