Don Smith is still causing a stir at Iowa State.

After 30 years, Smith, former Government of the Student Body president, returned to campus Thursday to present two speeches at the Memorial Union.

More than 25 people showed up to listen to Smith’s speech about “Lessons Learned from the Sixties” at noon in the Pioneer Room. Some, who were ISU students in 1967, reminisced as Smith explained inviting Life magazine to a marijuana party.

Unlike many GSB presidents, Smith did not do rigorous campaigning.

He said he hadn’t planned on running for president until a friend encouraged him.

Smith said he resigned after a 40- day reign as GSB president in 1967 because “it was a hassle.”

“A friend said that I was hurting the movement with the marijuana thing, and that I should resign,” Smith said. “I wasn’t able to leave my house with out being cheered and booed.”

But things have changed.

In 1967, Smith was a radical who believed in students’ rights, and he still does. But the radical part is questionable.

“I don’t want to call myself a burned out ’60s radical, but I guess I am,” Smith said.

Smith still had strong views about many subjects.

He said the spread of wealth in the United States and conditions in the Third World have actually gotten worse since the ’60s.

Smith said he cannot support the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union, but he thinks the United States is responsible for its economic demise.

Racial equality was also a hot idea in 1967, and it was another thing many radicals were fighting for.

Although there’s been some token gains, Smith said he’s seen recent backlash.

One example Smith gave was drugs in black communities. Smith said he sees firsthand the effect drugs have on the black community. He said he lives three blocks away from a community infested with drugs in Oakland, Calif.

“Clearly the government really hasn’t tried to keep it out of the ghettos,” Smith said. “The police don’t care if blacks are killing blacks.”

One thing that has changed since 1967 is people’s awareness of environmental concerns, he said.

“In my case they’re deregulating utilities in California,” Smith said. “A lot of ’60s radicals felt that they weren’t selling out if they went to work for environmental companies.”

People’s increased comfort with the subject of sex was another subject that came out of the ’60s, Smith said. “With the sex revolution, there came with it some problems that we didn’t know of, and couldn’t have expected in the ’60s,” he said, about the growing problem of sexually transmitted diseases.