By Laura Barron-Lopez

For the Daily Titan

Half-Baked, the forum held in the Humanities Building Wednesday night, was a fitting title for the topic of discussion: marijuana and the facts, myths and laws behind it. The forum held by Cal State Fullerton’s Substance Abuse Awareness and Prevention Student Association provided a panel representing multiple sides of the controversial drug. The discussion was intended to inform the audience and discover a better system for dispensing and controlling marijuana.

The panel consisted of a clinic manager, a dispensary owner, three former marijuana addicts from Narcotics Anonymous and the president of California Association for Alcohol/Drug Educators.

Interest for the forum was evident in the amount of students and community members who attended, taking up every seat in the lecture room. Some were there by choice, others simply for extra credit, but the intrigue was still there.

“I am here for extra credit, but I am interested to see if the videos and lectures we have in class are consistent with what the panel has to say,” said Danielle Ewry, a child development major.

When the questions covered marijuana legality, the tension rose.

Kandice Hawes and David Bond, panelists representing the dispensaries and clinics, found themselves under the most scrutiny. Certain audience members argued the numerous flaws present in the system and asked what was being done to fix them. Many told stories of how they knew friends who had abused the system and acquired medical marijuana cards without having a valid medical excuse. In response, the panelists stressed that their dispensaries and clinics do not abuse the system, and they check the validity of medical cards.

Bond continued to explain the ins and outs of running a medical marijuana dispensary. He informed the audience that they are run as non-profit organizations and that in Los Angeles 97.5 percent of dispensaries pay a sales tax, including his.

Former addicts presented an opposing argument to marijuana use. They shared their experiences with addiction and the effects it had on their day-to-day lives.

Terry, whose last name was withheld because he is a member of Narcotics Anonymous and who is now 14 years sober, told his own story. “What made me realize that I was addicted was when I was rolling a joint at home sitting in between my wife and 2-year-old son and I was so stoned that I couldn’t remember what side of me my wife was on. I turned toward my son, who knew perfectly how to hold the joint, and it was at that point that I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to smoke around my kid anymore,” he said.

Despite the differing viewpoints, the information provided insight to help people understand marijuana.

For example, the myth that doctors prescribe marijuana was set straight. Doctors don’t prescribe marijuana; they recommend it because prescriptions are regulated under federal law. In order to ensure the safety of their medical licenses, doctors give recommendations. That recommendation qualifies the patient to receive marijuana from dispensaries. Furthermore, the topic of dependency versus addictive nature was discussed. Dependency means that chemicals cause a body to have withdrawal symptoms, whereas addiction refers to the act of continually using a substance despite negative consequences, said Jack Kearney, president of CAADE.

The reaction to the lecture was positive; many students rushed to the front once it ended to ask the panelists one-on-one questions. Overall, many students left the forum with more knowledge than they previously had on the subject.

Ishmael Naylor, a psychology major, and Kymon Blackwood, an Afro-Ethnic studies major, expressed their approval of the discussion and noted that the arguments raised were ones they hadn’t considered before. However, Naylor said that he would have liked to see a panelist who had used marijuana but hadn’t as negative of experiences as the three Narcotics Anonymous panelists in order to show some middle ground.

This was SAAPSA’s first big event.

“As a club, we wanted people to have correct information from both sides and for the knowledge to come from people who do this as a career,” said Amy Saunders, a human services major with a concentration in substance abuse and community outreach coordinator for SAAPSA.