Are You OK With CU Closing Their Public Campus to Extinguish 4/20 Fest?

University of Colorado officials hoping to curtail an annual marijuana-smoking gathering say those entering the Boulder campus during this year's 4/20 event must be cleared to do so or will need a university ID. Around 10,000 people gathered on campus at 4:20 p.m. on April 20th last year to smoke marijuana. This year that will cost you up to six months and jail and a fine of up to $750. Some are calling CU’s plan a threat to the First Amendment. How do you feel?

“(It) doesn’t reflect well on the reputation of the University. This is something that has to end. (It) will take some number of years, but we’d like to see it go away,” Huff said.“We feel it’s important enough to stop this event now before we’ve got 15 or 20,000 people,” CU Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard said.

But Dennis Blewitt of the Boulder Committee to Protect the First Amendment doesn't agree. In a statement, Blewitt said the 4/20 event is a protest against marijuana laws.“This right to protest is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The 4/20 protests last less than an hour, and then the 10,000 CU student protesters quickly dispersed. Very few arrests were made and there was no violence or any other trouble on the part of the protesters,” Blewitt said.

23 tickets were issued last year and five arrests were made.