Stoned age continues on campus
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 8, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Ariana Brookes Brookes is a fourth-year
English student who wouldn’t read these columns either. E-mail her
at [email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Ariana Brookes
Movies are filmed at UCLA all the time. It can be exciting;
sometimes you see celebrities and it’s all very nice. In
truth though, I don’t think anyone really cares if
“Buffy” is being filmed in front of Moore.
However, last year a movie was filmed at our school that had
every student on campus rushing out to watch. It featured Redman,
Method Man and everyone’s favorite smokable substance,
pot.
I don’t advocate the use of drugs or illegal substances
and what have you. My eyes are open, though, and I make a habit of
observing the practices of our campus. What I see is this: Half of
the students at our school are walking around stoned. I think
it’s great.
I mean come on, pot is everywhere. We go to a school full of
stoners. Take a look around campus. Ever wonder why so many people
are passed out on those couches in Powell? They aren’t just
tired, they are high as kites.
I have come to realize that it isn’t just me that notices
the trend. I walked into one of my discussions the other day to
find my teaching assistant sporting a “cotton mouth”
T-shirt, complete with a pot leaf logo poking out from underneath
his button-down white shirt. To my surprise and utter delight, he
decided that we would do a close-reading of Afroman’s
“Because I Got High” instead of Tennyson’s
“The Lady of Shalott.” My entire discussion knew every
word to the song. So did my TA.
 Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Pot has been a
mainstay at our school for decades. My mother has memories of
smoking hash while looking down onto campus through her window in
Sproul Hall. The smell has been emanating through the halls of UCLA
since the ’60s, and it shows no sign of letting up anytime
soon.
If you doubt what I say, or simply choose to ignore the obvious,
think back to the sunny days of spring quarter. On April 20, or
“4/20,” the hill in front of Kerckhoff is flooded with
UCLA’s best, all smoking with our friend Mary Jane. Rumor has
it that the campus police have no power over that area as it is
federal property.
Personally, I don’t buy it. It’s not like the entire
school isn’t aware of what’s going on. Everyone knows
that on April 20 Bruin Walk will be swarmed with local stoners. Are
we really supposed to believe that the police don’t know
enough to bring in the federal security beforehand?
I think that it is much more likely that the officials know
what’s up and just don’t give a you-know-what. If
nothing else, they know that on that day they can hang out by
Kerckhoff and get high on the fumes alone.
Perhaps this is their way of reliving their glory days without
actually having to take a puff. Or maybe they just understand that
if everyone is smoking, the school will have the most violence-free
day of the entire school year. After all, it is a known fact that
habitual smokers are about the nicest, chillest people you’ll
ever meet. That is, with the exception of ravers ““ a group of
people high on “E” act like a scene straight out of the
musical “Hair.”
So what are we supposed to think when we smell a sweet aroma
drifting out of the bathroom, or see some kid on a skateboard
floating along as though he were on his own personal cloud? Are we
supposed to scoff to ourselves like we have been taught as a
generation of “Just say no!”? Should we mourn for the
loss of the serious UCLA student and complain about the number of
idiotic comments we hear in our English lectures?
I say to hell with that. When our TAs are writing their theses
while high, and the most doped-up kids we know are getting As on
their papers, it’s hard to find real fault with the
“drug” that should have been legalized a long time
ago.
Instead, I propose this: Let’s gather up all of the
caffeine pills, diet pills, cocaine and speed on campus and throw
it into a giant bonfire. We can all sit around it one night and
smoke to the realization of a substance that makes college life a
little more bearable. All of the “4/20″-ers will be
there, and we can invite back all of the alumni from the ’60s
and ’70s to enjoy the fun. We’ll call it “UCLA
makes learning fun.”
I’ll be in the front row, breathing in deeply, and smiling
with the grin of a job well done.
