Jamie Graham, a former student arrested as a result of Operation Equinox, a 1991 drug bust of several University fraternities, spoke with students about finding an alternative method to the war on drugs in Clark Hall last night.
Graham spoke in an event sponsored by Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Students for Individual Liberty at the University.
"We need to wake people up and tell them [the war on drugs] is something that can affect them," Graham said.
Graham, a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, spent over 11 months in a Petersburg, Va. federal prison for selling two doses of LSD to an undercover police officer. Graham said he actually thought he was selling mescaline, a natural hallucinogen made from cacti extracts. Tau Kappa Epsilon later lost its charter with the University and the national chapter.
One of the purposes of Graham's speech was to "humanize the effects of the U.S. drug war and local drug war" to University students, second-year SSDP member Brandon Joyce said.
Graham urged students to "keep pushing in every way possible" to end the war on drugs, which he believes is corrupt and ineffective.
The war on drugs is not really an attempt by the government to get drugs off the street, but rather it "is about getting as many arrests as possible and seizing as much property as possible," Graham said.
The government and police "want people to do drugs," because of profits involved, he said.
Drug raids are profitable to the police because police departments are paid part of the revenue collected from seized property, he added.
To combat drug use more effectively, Graham encouraged initiatives focused more on medical problems. Now, there is "no real drug treatment" involved in the drug war, he said.
His story is fascinating, said Systems Engineering Prof. James W. Lark, adviser to SIL and chairman of the National Libertarian Party.
He is "a classic example of someone who is not hurting anyone whose life gets turned upside down," Lark said, citing Graham's drug conviction.
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