FED, High Times debate at KU
http://www.keystoneonline.com/2010/04/01/fed-high-times-debate-at-ku/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
By Claire Sitarz
"If you just applauded for Steve, you're the best allies I have," Bob
Stutman said. After letting the remark sink in for a moment, he
continued, "Your inability to argue rationally makes me thank God
you're on Steve's side of the argument."
Crowds squeezed inside the doors of Schaeffer Auditorium for KU's
first ever "Heads vs. Feds" debate. The debate pitted Stutman, a
retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent, against Steve Hager,
the editor-in-chief of High Times magazine.
The debate was an intellectual concert tour of sorts: The two have
been debating the same issue in campus auditoriums for years, which
is apparent in their exchanges.
After a student asked what would happen if marijuana were made legal,
Stutman cited a two-year-old Hager quote, saying, "we'll sit on our
lawn chairs smoking joints and look across the street to our neighbor
as we say, 'You too dude?'"
Hager's pro-marijuana argument was opinion based. He backed his
stance on marijuana by stating, "It's good medicine; it's a sacrament
of my culture."
In his rebuttals, Stutman made it clear that he had worked in a
harsher environment than Hager's hometown of San Francisco, peppering
his arsenal of critiques with statistics about having easier access
to market dealers and supporting organized crime.
While the crowd and the questions from the audience that followed the
debate were noticeably pro-Hager, students respected Stutman's wish
to "disagree about an issue without being personally disagreeable."
Although most of the questions raised by students pertained to
recreational drug use and marijuana laws in the U.S. and abroad (one
student asked what Hager's "favorite country for marijuana safe
spots" was), the debate ended with Hager backing away from
pro-marijuana stance, telling the crowd, "unless you have a medical
reason, you are part of the problem."
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