Tom Hill, vice president of student affairs, praised ISU’s National Organization for Reformation of Marijuana Laws chapter with its efforts, at the organization’s policy change awareness event.

“I think they’re doing a great job, I think they’re treating the topic very seriously, and I think they’re taking their time and being very planful about their activities and those kinds of things, so I think they’re doing a great job,“ said Hill, one of the group’s faculty advisers.

Memorial Union’s Great Hall was packed with students and NORML members at 7:30 p.m. March 3, 2013, for the Iowa Marijuana Policy Change Community Awareness Event, which featured three speakers in support of the cause. 

Speakers focused on one of the first accomplishments needed to get the policy changed; marijuana must be changed definitively from a schedule one drug to a schedule two drug.  In some states it is a schedule one and in others it is a schedule two. 

“You won’t find anything else that’s in two schedules,” said Carl Olsen, a web designer for Drake University and longtime marijuana law reformation activist.

Olsen explained that a schedule one drug means the drug is good for nothing and a schedule two drug is a drug that is good for something, such as medicinal purposes.

“Under the controlled substances act, it’s impossible for [a drug] to be in both classifications at the same time; it’s illegal to use anything without a medical authorization,” Olsen said. “So it’s impossible for marijuana to have medical use when it has a medical use and have no medical use when it has medical use.  It either does or it doesn’t, so this crazy language is persistent in Iowa law as of today.”

Dr. Charles Goldman, director of the Mercy Medical Center surgical residency, disputed claims that marijuana has no medicinal value.

“You have a prescription drug taken fr om a plant that supposedly has no medicinal value, and yet we’re prescribing a drug derived from that same plant, so [the classification of marijuana] has nothing to do with science,” Goldman said.

Goldman believes that if marijuana were to switch to a schedule two drug it would make it easier to do research on. 

“The science has said consistently said that there’s a use for marijuana in many diseases, but understand this, because marijuana is a schedule one drug, that makes it hard to do research on,” Goldman said.

State Rep. Bruce Hunter, an avid supporter of the reformation of marijuana laws the past two years, has introduced a bill to Iowa lawmakers that would make marijuana legal for medicinal purposes.  He explained that each year the bill has gained support but NORML ISU can help by garnering attention for their cause.

NORML ISU has gained traction with their organization this semester by becoming the largest student organization on campus.

“Keep the conversation going, be patient, be truthful, and talk with the facts because that is what’s going to get you to your goal in the end,” Hunter said.