University of Colorado Puts Photos Online of Students Smoking Marijuana

The University of Colorado has posted photographs on the Internet of their students smoking marijuana on April 20th, 2006. The page offers $50 rewards for anyone who can correctly identify a student.

Every year on 4/20 students at the University of Colorado gather at Farrand Field to take part in a form of civil disobedience, which calls for the legalization of marijuana. This year CU officials put out signs warning students to stay off the field.

But what good is civil disobedience if the disobedient "obey"?

The photos have prompted outrage from students and members of the community. Everett Sizemore, who lives in nearby Denver (The first US city to successfully vote "yes" for the legalization of marijuana) has posted a blog dedicated to getting the offending page listed as the first result on Google for the phrase "bull shit". The blog, located at http://mymyspaceblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/some-bullshit-going-on-at-cu.html proposes to do this by getting as many websites as possible to link to http://www.colorado.edu/police/420_Photo_Album/index.htm using hypertext inside the link such as: "Check out THIS bull shit!" .

The outraged political blogger and search engine optimization specialist has written to hundreds of college newspapers requesting that they use this linking format on their websites.

"The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) community did it to George Bush with the word 'failure' and now I am calling on my peers and university news outlets to voice their opinion online about this issue," says Mr. Sizemore.

He ads, "You'd think the school has worse things to worry about, what with a few dozen of their students having to starve themselves for two weeks before the University of Colorado finally gave in and agreed to no longer have underage workers and sweat shop employees make their uniforms".

His argument is that it is not fair for students to be subjected to what he refers to as a public witch hunt. "Does CU post pictures of underage drinkers online for all to see, including parents, friends, family and future employers? NO. So why are they targeting these kids?"