Police: Pot-smoking Event in UCSC Meadow 'A Moral Slap in the Face"

Sorce: mercurynews.com

SANTA CRUZ -- For those who arrest people who use, abuse or sell drugs, Sunday's pot-smoking festival at UC Santa Cruz was "a moral slap in the face to the cause," said Rich Westphal, task force commander with the Santa Cruz County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Despite efforts by the university to control access to campus, thousands of people, many of them students from UCSC and other California colleges, gathered at Porter Meadow to commemorate the so-called 4/20 cannabis culture holiday.

UCSC's once student-only gathering to smoke marijuana is now known nationally. It has grown to 5,000 people strong over the years, its popularity attributed to articles published in high-profile magazines like Rolling Stone and High Times Magazine -- along with newer forms of social media, like YouTube.

Though smoking pot is illegal, no one was arrested at the weed-smoking exhibition that unfolded Sunday.

Monday, some readers and callers to the Sentinel expressed shock that police knew what was going on and yet nobody was arrested as they drove away from the gathering, apparently under the influence of marijuana.

Grant Boles, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Aptos, said the CHP made no arrests Sunday but estimated that one in 40 DUI arrests is marijuana-related.

"The symptoms are usually the same with marijuana as they are with DUIs," he said, referring to alcohol.

Drivers high on marijuana, Boles said, tend to exhibit a decline in motor skills and swerve on the highway. Once they're stopped, they must undergo the same sort of field sobriety test as suspected drunken drivers, he added.

In Santa Cruz, a city ordinance was passed by voters in 2006 making marijuana-related crimes a low priority for police. Calls to Santa Cruz police were not returned Monday.

To Westphal, the massive turnout and the sheer amount of marijuana are symbolic of an even greater problem: How readily available marijuana is in California.

"My guess is that it came from a conglomeration of places: Mexico, Canada, private properties," Westphal said.

Add to that list countless state parks, large swaths of Bureau of Land Management property and caregivers who are designated to grow marijuana for those who are sick, said Westphal.

"Sometimes they give it to their friends," he said. "California is a big growing area. Everybody knows that. But when you've got something like 6,000 people blowing smoke, it's a moral slap in the face to the cause."

Marijuana use has long been identified with California. Not only does the climate lend itself to growing it, but the state's voter-passed medical marijuana law, one of few in the country, allows those who are sick to smoke the drug.

Consider this: If somebody is caught in the street carrying an ounce of cannabis, even though it could be a felony, more often than not it turns out to be a misdemeanor if it even makes it to court system, said Sgt. Steve Carney of the Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"Realistically, it's usually an infraction. It's rarely handled in the court system," Carney said of possession of cannabis. "Unless there's an extreme danger to the public, the court levels an infraction and a small fine under $100."

These days, Carney said, law enforcement officers are dealing with commercial growers and sellers, not necessarily the ones who are smoking it for fun.

The system, Carney said, is set up as such to allow for recreational use -- or medicinal use. The two, however, are starting to become blurred, and sometimes officers have a difficult time distinguishing between those who are truly sick and those who are using the medical card as an excuse to smoke, he said.

"Let's face it. The ability to go out and get medically certified and use it as a defense in court is just too easy," Carney said.

Still, Carney thinks UCSC handled Sunday's "4/20" event in the best manner that it could.

"I think it's like going to a concert and trying to rein in the activities of everybody going to the concert," Carney said. "All you can do is manage the problem at hand and makes sure it doesn't get out of hand."

Though university police turned back dozens of cars whose passengers and drivers couldn't come up with a genuine reason why they were on campus other than to attend the festival, Barry Shiller, associate vice chancellor of communications for the university, said pedestrians and bicyclists had access.

Whether that policy will change next year, it's too early to tell, Shiller said.

"It's too premature to talk about next year," he said. "It's really discomforting to have a large crowd using drugs on campus at one time. We shouldn't let that get lost in a conversation about logistics, but the logistics themselves were undertaken. We were especially concerned about high school and junior high school students getting in."

And some did. Two 17-year-old Soquel High and Cypress High School students who were mountain biking in the area said they smoke pot responsibly, but generally after they finish their homework.

"Smoking pot," said one of the teens, "is one of the greatest joys in life if you do it responsibly."

When asked whether he agreed with any of the studies on how marijuana can kill brain cells and affect short-term memory, the teen replied, "I think brain damage can have some very therapeutic effects sometimes."