OregonLive.com
Menu


Home
















News by Topic
News by Location
Sports
High School Sports
Entertainment/Lifestyle
Eat, Drink, Cook
Opinion
Homes
Rentals
Obituaries
Jobs
Autos
Classifieds
Connect With Us
Extras
Subscribe
















Back to Main Menu
Business
Crime
Marijuana
Politics
Education
Environment
Health
Diversity
Faith, Values, Family
Traffic
Watchdog
Interactive Maps & Charts
Video
Photos
Columnists/Voice






Back to Main Menu
Business News Home
Front Porch
It's Only Money
Oregon & the Economy
Playbooks & Profits



Silicon Forest
Window Shop
Business Public Blog



Back to Main Menu
Politics Home
My Government



Back to Main Menu
Education Home
My Schools











Back to Main Menu
Steve Duin
Samantha Swindler
Mark Katches
John Canzano
Joseph Rose
Kristi Turnquist
Grant Butler
Jessica Greif
Teresa Mahoney
Dave Killen









Back to Main Menu
Portland
Pacific Northwest
Multnomah County
Washington County
Clackamas County
Clark County
Oregon
U.S./World












Back to Main Menu
Oregon Sports
John Canzano
Ducks
Beavers
Blazers
Timbers
Vikings
MLB
NFL
Recruiting News
Sports on TV

More Sports








Back to Main Menu
NCAA
Pac-12
Pilots
Thorns
Hops
Track & Field
Winterhawks




Back to Main Menu
Boys
Girls
Off Season Sports




Back to Main Menu
Boys Basketball
Boys Swimming
Wrestling





Back to Main Menu
Girls Basketball
Girls Swimming
Dance and Drill
Competitive Cheer



















Back to Main Menu
Football
Baseball
Softball
Boys Track and Field
Girls Track and Field
Soccer
Volleyball
Boys Tennis
Girls Tennis
Boys Golf
Girls Golf
Boys Water Polo
Girls Water Polo
Boys Lacrosse
Girls Lacrosse
Cross Country
Boys Ice Hockey
Boys Skiing



Girls Skiing
Field Hockey
Boys Rugby
















Back to Main Menu
TV
Movies
Music
Living
Homes & Gardens
Travel & Outdoors
Arts & Performance
Books
Pets
Vintage Oregon
Joseph Rose
Events
Advice
Puzzles & Games
Comics









Back to Main Menu
Cheap Eats
Dining Out
Portland's Best Restaurants
Recipes
Cooking
Beer
Bars
Wine








Back to Main Menu
The Stump
Editorials
Letters to the Editor
My Oregon
OpEd
Elizabeth Hovde
David Sarasohn






Back to Main Menu
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
Our Staff


Oregonian Plus Members
Buy an ad






Back to Main Menu
Find & Save
Local Businesses
Living Plus
Travel Plus
Gift Guide






Back to Main Menu
The Oregonian
Digital Edition
Manage your subscription
Email newsletters
Mobile apps
Back to Main Menu
Close
Customize Your Weather
Set Your Location (Enter City and State or Zip Code)
Submit
Congratulations!
Your weather is set to . You can change the location at any time.
AccuWeather.com Quick Look
Change your current location »
View Full Weather Report
Search Search
Search
Search OregonLive.com
Account Sign In
Close
Sign in to
OregonLive.com
Sign In
Remember me
Forgot your username and password?
Don't have an account?
Register now for free, or sign in with any of these services:
You are signed in as
Edit Public Profile Sign Out

Favorite Schools
expand

Favorite Teams
close
Subscribe





The Oregonian
Digital Edition
Manage your subscription
Email newsletters
Mobile apps
comments
Marijuana is not legal at Oregon colleges,
universities, despite new pot law
Marijuana legalization: effects on campuses Three Portland State University students give their
views on effects of Oregon's new pot law on their campus.
Print Email
Richard Read | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Richard Read | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on October 03, 2015 at 5:00 AM, updated February 01, 2016 at 4:07 PM
comments
Wow, dude, you're going to college in Oregon? Pot is legal there! You can smoke a joint before
Econ class, right?
Uh, wrong.
Wrong on so many levels: collegiate, federal and possibly state, for starters.
Legal sales of recreational marijuana to adults began Thursday in Oregon. But administrators of
Oregon colleges and universities, both public and private, say nothing has changed or will
change on their campuses because of the state's new pot law.
If you're a student 21 or older, you don't get a pass if caught using marijuana on campus. Nor can
you smoke weed in the privacy of your dorm room. Marijuana, in all its forms, still violates
school regulations at every Oregon college that receives federal funding.
"Universities, being federally funded, are obligated to follow federal regulations when it comes
to treatment of controlled substances such as marijuana," said Kelly McIver, University of
Oregon Police Department communications director. "Don't expect a big change, because
marijuana will still be a no-no here on University of Oregon property, regardless of the age of a
person."
Strict policies for athletes
College athletes are subject to much stricter standards for marijuana than other students.
They can lose eligibility to play if a random test by the National Collegiate Athletic Association
reveals more than 5 nanograms of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, per milliliter of urine.
That threshold is so low that athletes can fail even if they have last consumed pot days or even
weeks before.
Therefore an athlete 21 or over who had smoked a joint off-campus legally, under Oregon's new
marijuana law, could get sidelined for test results.
Mark Rountree, Portland State University athletics director, said the school doesn't generally
conduct its own tests of athletes unless a student behaves in a way that raises health health or
safety concerns.
"If there's a positive result, we would want that student to engage in healthy practices, counseling,
those sorts of things," Rountree said. Athletics staff members decide case-by-case whether or not
to restrict such a player from sports, he said.
Not that most college security officers are about to detain anyone for possessing small amounts,
or refer them to disciplinary action for first, minor offenses. Even Reed College, where campus
safety officers take a hard line on marijuana use despite the school's counter-cultural reputation,
tends to give a kid a break in initial relatively minor cases, administrators say.
But officers at Southeast Portland's Reed — whose president, John Kroger, is a former Oregon
attorney general and federal prosecutor — will patrol dorms and ferret out weed.
Gary Granger, Reed's director of community safety, worries that some students will try to avoid
detection by ingesting marijuana in food. Consumers age 21 or over can't buy edibles or
concentrates in Oregon stores for now. But people can still cook legal or illegal pot into food, or
find themselves eating marijuana-laced brownies, for example, at parties.
"Once you've ingested it, you're on a train you can't get off," Granger said. Eating too much, he
said, can create a drug-induced psychosis. You will hallucinate, your heart will race, you can't
feel your legs, you can't walk. You think you're going to die."
Reed has a 26-page "Alcohol and other drug policy," enacted in 1993 and repeatedly amended,
that minutely details potential violations and repercussions. The policy outlines five response
levels escalating from a dean's warning letter and invitations to discuss an incident or seek
counseling all the way to a hearing before a college judicial board, which could recommend
expulsion.
In their student handbooks, the University of Portland and other institutions could not be more
clear in their stance toward Oregon's new law.
"Regardless of its status in the state of Oregon, or whether or not an individual possesses a
prescription for medical uses, marijuana is banned from our community," the University of
Portland handbook says. That ban extends off campus at the North Portland Catholic school, as it
does at George Fox University, a Christian institution in Newberg.
Portland State University also bans pot possession or use, but only on school property, and on
university-sponsored events or trips off-campus. Portland State recently followed Oregon State
University and the University of Oregon in instituting a campus-wide smoking ban.
Oregon's marijuana law says that marijuana cannot be consumed in public places, including
schools. But the clause concerning public places doesn't say whether "school" includes colleges
and universities.
Leland Berger, one of the authors of the ballot measure that led to legal pot, said he hadn't
noticed the discrepancy, which could be worth legislators fixing. But he noted it might not
matter.
"As long as the federal government continues to irrationally demonize the use of cannabis by
adults, it really is an academic hypothetical inquiry, rather than an actual problem," Berger said.
Oregon's new marijuana law also won't impact researchers on state campuses. For
example, Oregon State University will continue to ban research that physically involves
marijuana.
"We will not conduct research at OSU that engages in propagation, distribution or enhancement
of marijuana or even of hemp," said Steve Clark, Oregon State vice president of university
relations and marketing.
Industrial hemp is a non-intoxicating relative of marijuana grown for its sturdy fiber, which can
be used in cloth, paper, rope and other consumer products Clark said banning hemp from
research is controversial because advocates such as U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., say pot's
cousin could be an economic boon to the state.
But academics do study pot's impacts on society and the economy. At Oregon State, Seth
Crawford, a marijuana policy researcher, has worked outside of his paid job as a non-tenuretrack instructor to assess the drug as a business.
Crawford sees southern Oregon as a hotbed for weed. He estimates the state grows three to five
times the 150,000 pounds or so consumed annually by its pot users, pre-legalization. Pot could
be Oregon's most valuable agricultural commodity, Crawford said.
At Oregon, researcher Ben Hansen focuses on the economics of risky behavior. He and his
colleagues have found that states legalizing medical marijuana see declines in drunken-driving
deaths and suicide, which he believes occur as some people substitute pot for riskier substances
such as alcohol.
"While people who are high or drunk both exhibit physical impairment, it could be that people
who are drunk take more risks, and people that are high actually take fewer," Hansen said.
"Perhaps an even more likely scenario is that people using marijuana are at home instead of
drunk at bars."
The distinction remains largely academic for Oregon college students. State law may have
changed, but no one is allowed to possess or consume pot on campus.
-- Richard Read
503-294-5135
rread@oregonian.com
Follow on Twitter: @ReadOregonian
EDUCATION PLUS
SPONSOR CONTENT
See All »

Read The Oregonian/ OregonLive's College Education Guide

College costs: know the ABC's of financial aid

Colleges collaborating, teaching innovative programs for tomorrow's emerging careers
More sponsored stories »
Most Read
Your Schools Guide
Find your school: Test scores, Oregon and federal ratings,
and more
Search for academic achievers, graduation rates, test scores & more.
More from Your Schools





2014 kindergarten readiness
2014 high school graduation rates
Information on every Oregon public school
Federal and Oregon state test scores
Follow @chalkup on Twitter
More Your Schools data »
Contact Us

Betsy Hammond | Trends & Policy | 503-294-7623

Laura Frazier | Classroom Instruction | 503-294-4035

Andrew Theen | Higher Education | 503-294-4026
About Us



About OregonLive.com
Advertise with us
Contact the newsroom



Join our team
Our Journalists
Contact Subscriber Services
Subscribe Today


The Oregonian
Email Newsletters
Already a Subscriber




Manage your Subscription
Delivery Feedback
Place a vacation hold
Make a payment
OregonLive.com Sections








News
Business
Sports
High School Sports
Entertainment
Living
Travel
Opinion


Obituaries
Jobs






Autos
Real Estate
Rentals
Classifieds
Local Deals
Local Businesses
Your Regional News Pages



Clackamas County
Clark County
Gresham



Portland
Washington County
More Local News
Mobile

iPhone, Android apps | Tablet Apps
More on OregonLive.com





Forums
Videos
Photos
Interact with us
Weather






Post a job
Post a classified ad
Sell your car
Sell/rent your home
Sitemap & search
Sponsor Content
Follow Us

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Pinterest | Instagram | Tumblr
Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy
Policy
© 2016 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved (About Us).
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise
used, except with the prior written permission of Oregon Live LLC.
Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Contact
interactivity management.
Ad Choices