In a recent article published by Westword, some seem to have taken issue with the claim that CU Boulder is one of the nation’s top 420-friendly schools.
The article called the list of the top 10 best weed-friendly colleges, which listed CU Boulder at number seven, “clueless.” It also said that the list perpetuated “misinformation . . . about our fair state (Colorado) and marijuana.”
In particular, the article took offense at the list’s description for why CU Boulder was included on the list.
While we focused on CU Boulder’s long and rich history of amazing 420 celebrations and protests, this article tried to make it sound like school administrators and Boulder law enforcement have successfully erased the school’s strong 420 spirit.
Here’s what it said:
“Well, CU Boulder closed its campus for three consecutive years beginning in 2012 in order to kill the 4/20 bacchanal. And there was no revival last year, when the campus was open with the exception of Norlin Quad and extra cops were deployed to make sure the old smokey days didn’t return.”
Westword’s article basically does two things. It attempts to ridicule CU’s inclusion on the list, and it attempts to erase CU students’ ongoing efforts to keep their 420 traditions alive.
And all of this seems to indicate that the folks at Westword have fallen out of touch with actual university students, both at CU and around the nation.
To begin with, CU’s position as the seventh most weed-friendly school didn’t just come out of nowhere. This was the ranking the school was given by The Princeton Review after it carefully interviewed 136,000 students at 380 schools.
Maybe Westword thinks that CU shouldn’t be in the top ten. Or maybe it thinks CU shouldn’t be number seven. Or maybe that CU shouldn’t be on the list at all.
Either way, to call this list “clueless” is to call the 136,000 college and university students whose insider information is at the foundation of the list equally “clueless.”
Not a good idea. If anyone knows about the cannabis scene at the U.S.’s colleges and universities, it’s the students who attend them.
Similarly, Westword’s attempt to make it sound like it’s either “clueless” or “misinformation” to talk about the way CU Boulder students celebrate 420 is also out of touch.
OK, sure, so CU students might not congregate in the Norlin Quad the way they used to. The precise location where CU students choose to celebrate 420 isn’t really what matters anyway.
Westword’s article would apparently have readers believe that Boulder law enforcement and CU administrators have finally squashed all remnants of the students’ politically informed action.
But nothing could be further from the truth. CU Boulder students have not been so thoroughly silenced.
No matter where it happens, or how it happens, CU Boulder students—along with college students around the country—continue to light up both in joy and in protest.
Even if CU students no longer celebrate 420 on the Quad, anybody at all familiar with the lives and realities of actual students knows that the celebrations continue no matter what.
In the end, Westword’s attempts to say that listing CU Boulder at number seven because of its students’ well-known 420 celebrations is either “clueless” or “misinformation” is a bit of a stretch.
And to get so caught up on the precise locations where these celebrations take place is an attempt to pull attention away from the conversations that matter most.
