In the finale of The Bruno Brief’s series on myths at Brown, Finn Kirkpatrick and Elysee Barakett discuss their reporting on the history of marijuana at the University. Though marijuana use is widespread on college campuses — the National Institute on Drug Abuse found in 2020 that 44% of American college students used marijuana in the last year — Brown has long held the reputation of being a “stoner” school. Is this title earned? Where did it come from? What is happening on campus now?
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Listen to last week’s episode about Brown as the “Happiest Ivy” here
Finn Kirkpatrick
A quick note before we begin: Marijuana remains federally classified as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. While marijuana is legal in Rhode Island for people over the age of 21, the University’s Student Conduct and Community Standards state that “marijuana is not allowed on campus, regardless of whether an individual is permitted by a governmental authority to use marijuana due to a medical condition.”
Now with that said, here’s this week’s episode:
Elysee Barakett
It’s no secret that college students smoke weed. The National Institute on Drug Abuse found in 2020 that 44% of American college students used marijuana in the last year.
A visitor would become remarkably aware of that fact on April 20th on College Hill. Commonly referred to as 4/20, the day is sort of like a Super Bowl for stoners.
[April 20 clip from Main Green]
Finn Kirkpatrick
The afternoon of 4/20, the Main Green was packed with students. People camped out in tents and sat on blankets and student organizations sold snacks in front of Sayles Hall.
Elysee Barakett
The gathering is somewhat of an annual tradition on campus, at least in recent years. On April 21, 2011, The Herald reported that “hordes of Brunonians” had “descended on the Main Green” on the previous day, and that “The Blue Room reportedly recorded its highest-ever single-day sales total.”
Finn Kirkpatrick
This year, there was a countdown as the clock inched toward 4:20 p.m.
[Ambient noise from April 20 on the Main Green]
Finn Kirkpatrick
Then, a cloud of smoke. Well, clouds.
[Ambient noise from April 20 on the Main Green]
Elysee Barakett
In March 2022, a Brown Opinion Project poll found that roughly half of undergraduates surveyed had used marijuana recreationally in the last six months. That number decreased significantly from the late 1970s, when almost 70% of the undergraduate population was reported to smoke weed regularly.
Overall, the numbers or perhaps something else, have earned Brown somewhat of a reputation for consuming cannabis. Just ask Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson
You can imagine the caravan of Subarus on Thayer Street leaving town. Newly unemployed inclusion officers, bewildered queer dance scholars, sloped shoulder film studies majors driving back to their parents in Westchester with a bong between the seats. A sad parade.”
Finn Kirkpatrick
So why does Brown have a reputation as a “stoner school,” if it has one at all, and how has marijuana use on College Hill changed over the last few decades? What about the last couple centuries?
My name is Finn Kirkpatrick, Bruno Brief editor and arts and culture editor. This is the sixth and final episode of our season on myths at Brown.
Elysee Barakett
And I’m Elysee Barakett, Bruno Brief producer and staff writer.
Finn Kirkpatrick
This is the Bruno Brief.
Documented evidence of marijuana consumption on campus begins with a name that many Brown students are well aware of: John Hay.
In the mid-19th century, before becoming William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of state and Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary, he was Brown’s class poet.
Elysee Barakett
During Hay’s time at Brown, American author Fitz Hugh Ludlow published an autobiography titled “The Hasheesh Eater” which chronicled his experimentation with hashish, a drug made by compressing fine grounds of the cannabis plant into a reddish-brown brick.
Its publication provided great interest to the American public and inspired many, Hay included, to try out the substance themselves. A remark from a classmate by the name of Gilmore published in the book, “The Life and Letters of John Hay” reads:
Finn Kirkpatrick
“On one occasion, at least, his enthusiasm for literature was carried to excess. ‘The Hasheesh Eater’ had recently appeared; and Johnny must needs experiment with hasheesh a little, and see if it was such a marvelous stimulant to the imagination as Fitzhugh Ludlow affirmed. ‘The night when Johnny Hay took hasheesh marked an epoch for the dwellers in Hope College. It’s 56 years ago; but I remember it well.”
Hay himself even once wrote in a letter that Providence was a place “where I used to eat Hasheesh and dream dreams.”
Elysee Barakett
Besides Hay, it’s hard to find any mention of marijuana usage at Brown for over a hundred years. Mentions of the word “marijuana” only appear in digitally archived issues of The Herald twice before 1964.
Finn Kirkpatrick
After then, reporting begins to pick up quite a bit. A Thursday issue of the paper on March 3, 1966 featured a full page spread titled, “Marijuana: Problems and Policy,” the contents of which mention recent arrests and expulsions for marijuana possession and debate the benefits of enforcement. They found that at least 100 students on campus have used Marijuana.
Finn Kirkpatrick
By the following Monday, a small blurb simply titled “Marijuana” appeared on The Herald’s front page, which read: “The Rhode Island Division of food and drug control has assigned an agent to investigate the possibility of extensive use of marijuana at the University,” and that a division administrator had been “concerned with the figure of 100 student marijuana users that appeared in a story printed in last Thursday’s Brown Daily Herald.”
Elysee Barakett
The University eventually sent out a letter to all Brown and Pembroke students on May 5 in order to clarify Brown’s policy towards marijuana. Three weeks later, then President Barnaby Keeney released another statement: “The University does not condone the possession, use or distribution of marijuana and/or any other hallucinogins (sic) and narcotics by any of its students. Any student known to be possessing marijuana or other drugs is subject to disciplinary action.”
Elysee Barakett
Large amounts of reporting on campus Marijuana usage appeared again in 1979. On Feb. 5, The Herald reported on a poll conducted by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws which stated that 68.5% of students regularly smoke marijuana and 86.5% of students had smoked at least once.
Though some expressed concerns about the validity of the poll, weed culture was certainly ubiquitous enough for The Herald to extensively cover a campus marijuana shortage on December 3, 1979.
Finn Kirkpatrick
The article, which exclusively used anonymous sources, detailed Brown students’ difficulties scrounging for marijuana. When one source was asked if he thought the shortage would lead to a positive change in student study habits, he replied that “people are just spending more time looking for the means to get high.”
Elysee Barakett
Conversations about marijuana’s place on campus reached new highs on Dec. 8 and 9 in 1994, when the Undergraduate Council of Students held a referendum over whether the University should maintain their prohibition on marijuana. In a letter to the editor, student Babu Kaza ’97 explained the rationale behind why he believes students should vote “yes.”
Finn Kirkpatrick
“We all know that Brown can't really supersede federal and state laws, but we can still send a message. Will it be a message that we’re going to smoke pot to free our minds from an oppressive society and overthrow government? No, not quite, not unless you've been
hitting the pipe way too much. The message we can send is that Brown is still Brown. It’s still hardcore and not a watered down shadow of former glory a la Berkeley,” he wrote.
Elysee Barakett
The referendum passed with a 59% majority, though it was largely symbolic, according to Justin Uhlemann ’98, a member of Joint Effort, an organization that led the charge to vote “yes.”
“We’re not actually attempting to make marijuana legal on campus because we know that is not very probable,” he told The Herald. “One of our goals is to get marijuana to be an issue of Health Services, not Police and Security.”
Elysee Barakett
Nearly thirty years later, we spoke with several students in the Blue Room about how this aspect of Brown’s identity continues today. Here’s one student, who opted to remain anonymous due to potential professional repercussions, talking about the University’s weed culture.
Anonymous Student
I haven’t really seen it in media, but like, definitely like the reputation like when I heard about Brown before coming, was that like it was a huge stoner school.
As soon as it turns nice outside, it smells like weed sometimes
Finn Kirkpatrick
And here’s another student, Maria Claudia Bonaparte ’26, discussing how she sees the impact of marijuana on College Hill life.
Maria Claudia Bonaparte
That’s also related to the party culture because it’s not a very like big party school like of going out and drinking alcohol. So I think there are people who are more inclined to go out and drink, and there are other groups who will be happy to stay in their dorm on a Friday or Saturday night with their group of closest friends and just smoking weed or taking edibles or something.
Ramla Jabbour
I would say Brown is a stoner school, especially during the spring when everyone’s outside on the Main Green and you see a lot of joints being passed around.
I have friends at other colleges in the U.S., and like definitely there’s weed, but it’s not known as a being a stoner school like Brown is. My mom actually went to Brown undergrad too and it was already a weed school.
Elysee Barakett
That was Ramla Jabbour ’26.
Students also emphasized that they were supportive of Brown’s perceived lack of enforcement or “taboo stance” around marijuana.
Here are Jabbour and Bonaparte again:
Ramla Jabbour
“I think it is a good thing, it makes you feel safe in the environment … I’m not scared to ask for help, it’s not illegal, it’s not taboo to talk about it, I think it’s a safe environment.”
Maria Claudia Bonaparte
If the school was very against it then maybe if a student is having problems with weed they would maybe feel like less comfortable maybe going to the therapist or if they’re having something in the moment like calling EMS.
Finn Kirkpatrick
Though weed has had a presence on campus for a while now, only recently does it feel like something people are willing to openly discuss. In about 60 years, using the drug has gone from being actively investigated and policed to now being celebrated on a packed Main Green every year on April 20.
Elysee Barakett
It is difficult to fully assess just how prevalent the drug is on campus. Yet it is safe to say that through the generations, Brown students have somewhat of a special relationship with cannabis — whether it is John Hay dreaming dreams or a chorus of cheers under a cloud of smoke on the Main Green.
Finn Kirkpatrick
Thank you for listening to the finale of season 5 of The Bruno Brief. This episode was produced by Elysee Barakett, Liana Haigis, Daphne Dlunziewski, Matias Gersberg, Sonya McNatt, Jacob Smollen, Carter Moyer, Samantha Renzulli and me, Finn Kirkpatrick. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to The Bruno Brief and leave a review. Thanks for listening.
Music:
Denzel Sprak by Blue Dot Sessions https://www.sessions.blue
Crumpet by Blue Dot Sessions https://www.sessions.blue
Our Only Lark by Blue Dot Sessions https://www.sessions.blue
Tucker Carlson Clip: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6245856083001
