College student shot by police during dorm drug raid

Micah Uetricht March 13, 2009

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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.