College and University Blog
Don’t Bring Pot Brownies to School: College Prank Leads to Arrests
The idea of smoking pot on campus – legally – has been up for discussion ever since Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana.
School smoking policies will most likely not change due to federal regulations, and neither will policies regarding other marijuana use. Two college students allegedly brought brownies laced with pot to class and offered them to unsuspecting students as well as a professor, who ate them unknowingly.
The college prank might sound funny at first, but the pair has been arrested on felony suspicion.
Drugging the Professor Probably Isn’t Going to Help Your Grade…
Two University of Colorado students were accused of bringing pot brownies to class last Friday, December 7, 2012 for “bring food day,” Corpus Christi NBC News affiliate KRISTV.com reported.
Eight people who ate the brownies got sick and three wound up in the hospital.
The University of Colorado Boulder Police Department arrived at the Hellems Arts and Sciences Building after a professor felt dizzy and was going in and out of consciousness. After investigation, it was realized that the professor as well as eight classmates had suffered effects of THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Susan Kent, chair of the University of Colorado Boulder’s history department, pointed out that the professor could have been driving a car or with her children when she began blacking out. "It’s just a terrible, irresponsible and reckless act,” she told the media.
A Joke Gone Bad?
“Putting marijuana in a food product and providing it to somebody without their knowledge has always been illegal, and that will continue to be illegal, even after Amendment 64,” Ryan Huff, a spokesperson for the University of Colorado Boulder Police Department, explained.
Amendment 64, which passed on Election Day November 6, will allow adults over the age of 21 to legally possess less than one ounce of marijuana for recreational use. The new law is expected to go into effect early next year.
Twenty-one-year-old Ricardo Cunningham and 19-year-old Mary Elizabeth Essa both openly confessed to pulling the college prank gone awry. “Everyone knew who brought the brownies,” student Sarah Meyer, who went to the hospital after suffering what she thought was an anxiety attack but turned out to be side effects of unknowingly consuming pot brownies, told Boulder’s Daily Camera. “I don’t know how they didn’t think they’d be caught.” Meyer was “annoyed,” and “felt violated.” She also missed a biology exam and certified nursing assistant test.
Cunningham and Essa may go down in history as the daring duo who brought pot to class, but they are each facing four felony charges.
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Melissa Rhone+
Melissa Rhone earned her Bachelor of Music in Education from the University of Tampa. She resides in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys writing about college, pop culture, and epilepsy awareness.