By the University of Colorado Student Government
During the past year, (CUSG) has reached out to students to hear their perspective on 4/20. Although we may not have been able to hear from every student, we have made a concerted effort to reach as many students as possible.
We started working on this issue by convening a student task force with representation from CUSG and students at large who had expressed interest in being involved on this issue. In all, we had 14 students involved with our task force. Each student connected with their friends, colleagues and constituents to hear from them about their experiences in past 4/20s and how we could best address 4/20 this year and in future years to come.
The second way we worked to gain broad and valuable input was through conducting a formal survey of students on the matter. We received a high number of student responses and the sample was representative of the student body. From all of our outreach, we heard a wide range of opinions and perspectives, but one message that came out consistently was that students were unhappy being excluded from the solution and that students disagreed with many of the strategies used last year, in 2012.
We took this feedback to the administration and advocated for changes to the approach this year. The campus leadership listened to our concerns and acknowledged the impacts of the approach last year. They have started to address some of these concerns, for example, discontinuing the use of the fish fertilizer. We greatly appreciate the efforts and the collaboration over the past year. However, we continue to ask the administration to do more to minimize the negative impacts of proposed solutions. We hope that in future years we can keep campus open, minimize the police presence, remove the need for ID checks and open a dialogue about drug policies and related topics within our community.
This year, we made some progress toward a long-term solution to 4/20 on our campus. We've built an open relationship with the administration and we will continue working to find a solution that includes students. In order to keep moving forward, we need you. We need your voice. We need students to tell us your stories, your experiences, and your opinions. Our office, UMC 125, is always open and we invite any student to stop by and speak with us. You can also send an email to cusg.communications@colorado.edu and share your thoughts.