College student shot by police during dorm drug raid

Micah Uetricht March 13, 2009

In yet another example of the absurdity of the criminalization of marijuana (did we really need any more?), news broke today that a Grand Valley State University college student was shot in the chest during a police raid at his campus apartment in Allendale, Michigan. His crime? Smoking weed. Police acknowledged that the 20-year-old junior, Derek Copp--who describes his political views in his Facebook profile as "a left wing hippie peace-keeping liberal"--was unarmed. Did the cops mistake his bong for a gun? He is currently hospitalized in serious condition. Copp's misfortune, of course, is no isolated incident: in 2007, a 92-year-old woman was shot and killed in Atlanta when police, looking for drugs, broke down the door of her house – the wrong house – in a "no-knock raid." For those lucky enough to survive such raids and arrests, the long-term effects of the drug war are devastating – particularly on communities of color. In These Times has covered current prospects for ending this absurdity. Cases like this one should send a clear message to President Obama – who, as we all know, "inhaled frequently" because "that was the point" – to stop making criminals out of people who, you know, just want to relax, man.

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Micah Uetricht is an editor at Jacobin magazine. He is a contributing editor and former associate editor at In These Times, and the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity and coauthor of Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go From the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism, and is currently at work on a book on New Leftists who took jobs in industries like steel and auto to organize on the shop floor.