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Friday December 1, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 111 BEYOND THE BUBBLE
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COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS AND PIXABAY
Governor-elect Phil Murphy has promised to legalize marijuana upon taking office in January 2018.
High time for NJ marijuana legalization By Sarah Warman Hirschfield senior writer
Dominick “Nick” Bucci carried out over 1,000 arrests and convictions over 22 years working as an undercover detective in narcotics. Looking back, the retired New Jersey State Trooper feels that he “was doing it all wrong,” calling the war on drugs, the U.S. campaign to end illegal drug trade, an “abject failure.” “I really didn’t do anything other than lock people up,” Bucci told The Daily Princetonian, adding that he prevented these people from getting jobs, student loans, and housing. He noted that narcotics enforcement drives people who are arrested for illegal drug pos-
session back into the narcotics trade, the only way they can earn a living. “Now, I’m trying to make up for that by getting some of these laws changed,” said Bucci, who is involved with the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to the advancement of drug policy and criminal justice reforms to improve public safety. LEAP supports legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana in New Jersey. Recreational marijuana will likely be legalized in the state after Governor-elect Phil Murphy takes office. Murphy has indicated he will sign a legalization bill, such as the one introduced last year, which would legalize, regulate, and
tax the drug in order to reap the benefit of extra tax dollars and alleviate racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. The University follows state drug laws and has indicated that if marijuana is legalized, administrators will “make a determination … of how we would address any impact it would have on us,” as Daniel Day, assistant vice president for communications, told the ‘Prince.’ A report last year found that New Jersey has the biggest racial gap in incarceration rates of any state in the United States, putting black residents behind bars at 12 times the rate of white residents. Despite similar usage rates, blacks are almost four times more likely
ON CAMPUS
than whites to be arrested for marijuana. The green light signal from Murphy has attracted the attention of several stakeholders — retired state troopers, racial justice organizations, consulting firms, and trade associations — all looking to ensure that the rollout of the recreational marijuana program is efficient and just. “We have the benefit of the hindsight of all the different cannabis markets in the country,” explained Hugh O’Beirne, the recently selected president of the New Jersey Cannabis Industry Association, a nonprofit seeking to reform and rationalize the medical marijuana program and promote the full legalization of marijuana for
adults. “We want to see a robust, accessible market,” said O’Beirne. States that have rolled out recreational marijuana programs have seen net economic benefits and no social detriment, although there are pitfalls to avoid, according to O’Beirne. “When the switch is flipped, there are so many opportunities for massive failure,” he said. If the marijuana industry is not robust, the black market begins to fill in the gaps. NJCIA brings operational expertise to the legislative discussion, educating state legislators and decision makers so they can responsibly develop a program to roll out, according to O’Beirne. In addition, NJCIA See MARIJUANA page 5
ON CAMPUS
U. Art Museum honors World AIDS Day in annual celebration contributors
COURTESEY OF PROFESSOR JESSICA IRVING
The earthquake only took 40 seconds to travel from Delaware to central New Jersey.
Earthquake shakes campus By Allie Spensley and Benjamin Ball assistant news editor and contributor
The University found itself taking after the typical James Bond martini order — shaken, not stirred — when minor tremors were felt on campus on Thursday afternoon. The tremors were produced by an earthquake of a preliminary magnitude of 4.4 centered about ten miles from Dover, Del.
In Opinion
Initially the U.S. Geological Survey reported the magnitude to of the quake as 5.1, before later revising it to a 4.4. The earthquake struck at 4:47 p.m. Students on campus reported feeling the tremors, and some also noticed an impact off campus at 693 Alexander Rd. According to an article by the Office of Communications, University officials checked the buildings where the tremors were reported, including Nas-
Columnist Hayley Siegel analyzes the Paradise Papers controversy, and contributing columnist Sabrina Sequeira wants us to think about depictions of suffering. PAGE 4
sau Hall, Morrison Hall, New South Building, Stanhope Hall, and the Arts Tower at the Lewis Arts complex. No damage was reported. Twitter users, including History Professor Kevin Kruse, also reported feeling the earthquake in Princeton. West Windsor police chief Robert Garofalo issued an alert saying that a minor earthquake was reported in the area and that he “personally felt it.”
Caroline Harris, associate director for education at the University Art Museum, spoke Thursday evening on the AIDS crisis and the significance of the Day Without Art. The Art Museum has made a tradition of honoring AIDS victims through a ceremony hosted each year around Dec. 1, which is World AIDS Day and the Day Without Art, a national day of mourning when museums sponsor special exhibitions of work about AIDS. The annual tradition, which on Friday will celebrate its 28th anniversary, strives to raise awareness of AIDS and honors those who have died from the disease. Harris began her remarks by highlighting the history of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. She said that the first cases of AIDS in the United States occurred in Los Angeles in 1981, preceding a monumental outbreak of AIDS cases and deaths throughout the 1980s. Harris suggested that the history behind the epidemic influenced the planning of Princeton’s yearly memorials. “In our efforts to remember World AIDS Day, we’ve generally focused on that first de-
Today on Campus 8 p.m.: Princeton dance students perform repertory works and new works by distinguished choreographers. Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center.
cade,” said Harris. “That first decade of diagnosis, and the first decade of the health crisis, especially on the human rights and civil rights issues that arose in this country around the AIDS crisis. You know, as all of us remember, it was much more than a health crisis for all those years.” Harris recounted how, on past World AIDS Days, the University has sponsored a campus viewing of Derek Jarman’s autobiographical film “Blue.” The film, which was the last Jarman completed before his death from complications of AIDS, includes a single image of saturated blue while Jarman, his friends, and associates discuss his life and art. The Art Museum also exhibited LGBTQ+ artist Felix González Torres’s 1991 piece “Untitled,” a billboard featuring a picture of an empty bed in memory of González Torres’s late husband. The Museum featured multiple installations of the billboard around the greater Princeton area in 2013. Both González Torres and his husband passed away from complications of AIDS. In the past, the University has also invited distinguished artists diagnosed with AIDS to speak at the Day without Art celebration. However, Harris also highSee AIDS page 2
WEATHER
By Aishwarya Kalyanaraman, Mallory Williamson, and Linh Nguyen
HIGH
52˚
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Sunny chance of rain:
10 percent
The Daily Princetonian
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Friday December 1, 2017
AISHWARYA KALYANARAMAN:: CONTRIBUTOR
The Art Museum installation focuses on the work of David Wojnarwicz, a filmmaker, sculptor, and writer.
Celebration focused on art, activism, victims’ legacies AIDS
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lighted the differences in this year’s celebrations, explaining that past World AIDS Day ceremonies have been “more literary in focus.” This year, the University made the decision to focus more on permanent art pieces already in the Museum.
“For this year, we decided to bring it back inside the museum and do an installation from our permanent collection,” said Harris. “It’s an installation that primarily focuses on an extraordinary artist, David Wojnarowicz, who was a filmmaker, a photographer, an installation artist, a graffiti artist, a gifted writer, [and] a sculptor.” The Art Museum’s decision to focus on Wojnarowicz was
influenced by the fact that he played a “vital role in the activism of the time, and was so much a part of that community.” Wojnarowicz focused on the “image of the vulnerable, tortured body” to bring attention to the physical and psychological effects of AIDS on American society, as well as on the individual. “His art, even before the advent of the AIDS crisis, focused
on depicting people and stories that had been silenced — silenced by heteronormative culture, silenced by hegemonic culture,” said Harris. Other featured artists included James Romberger and Peter Hujar, the latter of whom was famous in his own right and as Wojnarowicz’s lover. Both were among the millions who succumbed to AIDS-related complications in the late 20th century.
Science has made staggering progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS since the virus initially gained global recognition. According to statistics compiled by the United Nations, 36.7 million individuals around the world live with HIV/ AIDS today. However, 20.9 million of those diagnosed have access to antiretroviral treatments for the disease, and AIDS deaths have fallen 48 percent from their height 12 years ago.
THE DAILY
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday December 1, 2017 ON CAMPUS
ANNA VINITSKY :: CONTRIBUTOR
Lepore told a full house that writing history in a state of political division is a daunting task.
Lepore discusses US history in Trump era By Anna Vinitsky contributor
Writing about American history in its present state of political division is a daunting yet immensely important task, said Jill Lepore, a professor of American history at Harvard and a staff writer at the New Yorker, in a lecture promoting her upcoming book on Thursday. “I don’t think we really have a good account of American history that spans the whole length of American history, but then also reaches across the political divide that is the chasm of our daily lives,” Lepore told the packed auditorium, explaining why she was drawn to the challenge. Lepore is not one to shy away from challenges. Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz made this clear when he introduced her to the audience, noting that her work “defies easy categorization, in part because there’s so much of it, and in part because it covers so much ground.” In fact, it is Lepore’s commitment to correcting what Wilentz calls “appalling civic illiteracy” that makes her an inf luential figure in her field. Lepore prefaced her lecture by reading the introduction and epilogue of her upcoming book and closed with an interactive Q&A segment contemplated the question of whether she should end her historical narrative at the moment of Trump’s election. Originally, Lepore said, she planned for her book to span from Columbus’s landing in America in 1492 to Obama’s inauguration in 2009. However, when Trump was elected in 2016, Lepore knew that she could not just ignore this period of history. “It seemed to me a sort of professional negligence not to carry the story to Trump’s election,” Lepore admitted. Reading from the introduction to her upcoming book, Lepore’s narrative traced the history of American republican ideals and moments in which they were challenged or, according to some accounts, abandoned. These truths, which Lepore called “ref lection and choice,” guided the government in its dealings with the American people through the Constitution. Lepore cited Alexander Hamilton’s “Federalist Papers,” which referred to the U.S. government as an “experiment in the science of politics,” and tested whether or not ref lection and choice could feasibly replace force, prejudice, and deceit in governance. She shared her belief that the conf lict Hamilton examined has been a prevail-
ing question underlying American politics ever since: whether a government grounded in reason, ref lection, and choice can both function and preserve the equality and protection of its citizens. Lepore cited political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people as the three main principles that define what it is to be an American. “In the centuries since, these principles have been cherished, deprived, and tested, fought for, fought over, and fought against,” Lepore said. She cited the Civil War and the Cold War as just two examples. Lepore also read from the epilogue to her book, one that is not blind to the worrisome tendencies of both the recent past and the present. She began reading about the U.S. liberal dilemma of recent decades, referring to the fact that liberals are not actively pursuing political positions and are instead relying on the Supreme Court to support their political leanings. “Conservatives rested their claim to political power on winning elections, and perhaps above all on winning history,” Lepore said. According to Lepore, conservatives became intent on not only claiming history but on turning it back as well, degrading and belittling the American experiment, as well as creating an imagined past. However, Lepore’s epilogue was by her account considerably optimistic. Lepore mentioned former President Barack Obama’s plea to the people to “choose our better history.” Responding to Obama’s words, Lepore said that while a nation cannot choose its past, it can choose and inf luence its future. According to Lepore, while liberals suffered in recent election cycles and the Trump victory seriously challenged the ideals on which the country was born, hope lies in the future generation. Lepore said with confidence that it is up to the next generation to rebuild the metaphorical ship of our nation’s social fabric. Although Lepore was not able to give the audience “a recipe to restore ref lection,” she said that she had both faith and history on her side when she claimed that it could be done. The lecture, “American History from Beginning to End: The Challenge of Writing American History in a Time of Division,” was sponsored by the Spencer Trask Lecture Series and took place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 30 in McCosh 50.
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Opinion
Friday December 1, 2017
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Hayley Siegel
The murky side of paradise
columnist
Offshore financial records dubbed the Paradise Papers were released on Nov. 5 by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The papers unveiled how moneyed individuals, power-hungry companies, and world-famous institutions shield their riches from the Internal Revenue Service. The leak revealed that a number of large college endowments, including Princeton’s, have been hiding their investments in offshore tax havens on Caribbean Islands. The question of whether or not Princeton can be morally justified in having an offshore account hinges on how willing we are to give primacy to the claims of the “goods” provided by the endowment over an evaluation of the endowment’s necessity and efficacy in producing such benefits. To make this judgement, a basic working knowledge of what is potentially “sketchy” about offshore accounts is needed. Here’s a brief summary: In a bid to increase their investments, institutions like Princeton have begun to increasingly partner with hedge funds and private equity funds. Legally, while endowments are tax-exempt, they owe taxes on any additional funding they receive through their partners that is not strictly connected to their “educational mission,” unless they can find offshore corporations to bury the loot. I believe that no defense of Princeton’s endowment, including the “benefits” claim, can overcome the obvious fact that the practice of abusing loopholes to avoid paying dues is morally dubious and objectively “wrong,” even if doing so supports a potentially worthy cause. Furthermore, the fact that the offshore accounts were kept hidden and are only coming to light now speaks to a lack of accountability on the University’s part and suggests that there exists no adequate reason for its needing to increase its endowment specifically through the extra
offshore income. I don’t mean to imply that endowments are always kept for insidious, self-serving reasons in the name of promoting social elitism, or funding a politically charged liberal agenda. I merely believe that college endowments — like all institutions — should be restricted to acting within reasonable bounds, employing only above-board methods of earning their income that they use to give back to society. They should also be subject to oversight and regulation in order to ensure that they are spending their money in the most effective ways possible to offer the greatest benefits. Princeton’s endowment has allowed it to do many good deeds, as noted by columnist George Will in The Washington Post. The endowment, representing over half of the University’s annual income, supports the 60 percent of undergraduates currently on financial aid and provides stipends to cover living expenses for graduate students. It enables most students to graduate debt-free with no loans. The expansion of the financial aid program has allowed for a need-blind admissions process that has increased socioeconomic diversity among the student body. These are not insignificant “goods” that should be overlooked or discounted. It’s true that without such a large endowment, the University would have to abandon this commitment to supporting lower-income students and have to raise tuition prices to cover its expenses. The University supports a thriving, diverse community with its endowment; this fact I cannot dispute. However, I believe that no decent reason has yet to be offered as to why the already-large endowment — that clearly is in no danger of shrinking — has a reason to use offshore accounts to grow just a little bit more. After all, while the total endowment itself has had a positive societal impact, there has been no proven benefit that can be tied solely to the money kept in offshore accounts.
In order to justify holding offshore accounts, I would argue that there still needs to be a certain base level of transparency about where the money goes to convince me that the benefit offsets the illegality of the act. Still, the morality of offshore investing aside, I do not think that we need to extend this debate to the morality of endowments in general. The suspicion that the largest of college endowments — unsurprisingly found among the Ivy League schools — are not using their riches to adequately reduce to educational disparities that young Americans face due to income inequality is so far unfounded. Sadly, Congressional Republicans have spearheaded a skeptical “anti-endowment” camp by capitalizing on the current mention of many schools in the Paradise Papers and the populist sentiments espoused by their base’s Trump-backing faction. Their new tax proposal is designed to eat away at what they see as universities’ ill-gotten funds in the name of supporting the working class against the greed of liberal college-educated elites, as evinced by the fact that it takes aim at the Ivy League, taxing only a small concentration of schools — around 60 to 70 schools — with student bodies totaling at least 500 and assets of at least $250,000. I would argue that taxation is not the answer. Estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation suggest that revenue generated by taxing college endowments would amount to a petty 0.003 percent of our government’s annual revenue in 2018, or only $200 million, which is considerably less than the net worth of many CEOs. The only thing that the Republican bill accomplishes is to offer a weak normative argument for why universities and the educated class are “bad.” Furthermore, despite the empirical statistics underlying their bill, the Republicans’ attack on endowments wrongly implies that endowments in general are a commonplace atrocity of
most “elite” universities and should be dismantled at all costs. The truth is that the majority of universities in the United States in fact do not have large endowments being replenished by a pipeline of billionaire alumni, and they may only receive nominal funds and “gifts” that will never swell to the proportion of Princeton’s endowment. Many schools simply do not have cash to burn and must use whatever funds they can scrounge for just to keep their doors open without astronomically hiking up tuition rates or cutting financial aid packages. Thus, the Republican barrage of rhetorical attacks on the inherent concept of endowments offers no better a solution to the broader issue of income inequality in the United States than universities’ current use of their endowments to educate as many people as they can. Ultimately, the decision of how much money should be allowed to be concentrated in the hands of one institution will always be a politicized, murky, and endlessly debatable topic. However, I believe that we can still parse out the benefits that college endowments — both large and small — offer to the millions of students seeking educational and economic opportunities. Furthermore, by supporting endowments and all that they offer through their tax exemption, we do not need to support questionable choices on their part, such as their reliance on offshore investing. Now that the Paradise Papers have exposed this indisputably illegal but rectifiable practice, it’s time we stop moralizing and move on. So long as university endowments remain transparent about their finances, keep records of their spending, and demonstrate not only gains in their investments but also accomplishments of their goals, we don’t need to wage a war against them. Hayley Siegel is a sophomore from Princeton, N.J. She can be reached at hsiegel@princeton. edu.
Giving more than a face to struggle Sabrina Sequeira
contributing columnist
A commercial break, creating a brief pause between screenings of prime time TV. A black screen fades in, and melancholy music plays in the background. The names of prominent charitable organizations appear on the backdrop: “UNICEF,” “Food for the Poor,” “St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.” The sunken faces of wide-eyed, famished children slowly fill our screens. How should we, as viewers, react? The visual depiction of human suffering in charity commercials is necessary for provoking an emotional response from viewers that can yield donations for the organization in question. Granted, there is no guarantee that such advertisements will motivate people to make donations from their couches. But visual presentations of suffering are much more effective than alternative methods of textual accounts and plain statements of fact. Consider a charity commercial that presents statistics on a blank background. It is unlikely that viewers will react, instead turning back to their phone screens. Facts are cold and detached from reality, and human beings do not respond emotively to data. The
relative success of charitable commercials in capturing attention stems from their powerful raw imagery. However, critics like executive director of War on Want John Hilary and Regarding Humanity co-founder Linda Raftree point out that visual advertisements risk objectifying those that are struggling. Textual content does not feed into objectification in the same way visual depiction does because it maintains a distance between the viewer and the victim. However, there is indeed something unsettling about stock photos of distant tragedies such as poverty, harassment, and sickness. Opponents of current visual advertisements find fault in the fact that viewers may feel as though they are largely different from those being depicted, that they cannot relate to the victims. These critics call for advertisements that empower donors to advocate for the charity. Overall, I concede that in merely splashing photos of anonymous, voiceless victims, we may fail to connect the viewer with the victims. Therefore, charity organizations should encourage photographers and videographers to capture the lives, rather than just the faces, of these often forgotten people through personalized video
depictions. Commercials should extend beyond the stationary photo; this way, they can more appropriately narrate the character of the people they depict. For instance, in short video clips of a young boy speaking an describing his daily activities, perhaps even his life story, the “subject” of an advertisement is no longer a subject, but a person. Additionally, from these stories, viewers can garner an even better idea of both the painful physical and traumatic emotional struggles faced by the victims of poverty and illness, rather than try to surmise these idiosyncratic hardships based on what a photo appears to share. Moreover, in hearing people speak via interviews, the audience can be better assured that those portrayed in the commercial are willing to call attention to their cause. With photos, the viewer may wonder if the person depicted even knows that they will become the source of empathy in thousands of living rooms. Critics note that it is important that advertisements get consent from the depicted person. As viewers, we should find it troubling if innocent people are not given a voice in their representation. With more personalized descriptions, and particularly with
interviews and videos of single people, we can better serve the people depicted in commercials. By this means, those depicted are treated with respect and given the courtesy to choose how they represent themselves, with control over expressing their own reality to a large audience. This personalized interview, call to action, or life description could prove to be more effective in communicating the reality of the situation, and in turn yield more donations. A video does not sacrifice a picture’s emotional response for the sake of a personalized, respectful depiction — indeed, it works to augment these factors. The visual depiction of human suffering remains widely contested over its potential to objectify the people in struggle. Visual depiction lends itself as more powerful in its appeal to sentiment, through the emotional heartbeat that unites humanity. To assuage some tensions in the visual depiction debate, and more importantly, to holistically depict people in hardship, videos could serve to communicate the story behind the face of struggle. Sabrina Sequeira is a first-year from Springfield, N.J. She can be reached at sgs4@princeton.edu.
vol. cxli
Sarah Sakha ’18
editor-in-chief
Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73
141ST MANAGING BOARD managing editors Samuel Garfinkle ’19 Grace Rehaut ’18 Christina Vosbikian ’18 head news editor Marcia Brown ’19 associate news editors Kristin Qian ’18 head opinion editor Nicholas Wu ’18 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Emily Erdos ’19 head sports editor David Xin ’19 associate sports editors Christopher Murphy ’20 Claire Coughlin ’19 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Lyric Perot ’20 Danielle Hoffman ’20 web editor Sarah Bowen ’20 head copy editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Omkar Shende ’18 associate copy editors Caroline Lippman ’19 Megan Laubach ’18 head design editors Samantha Goerger ’20 Quinn Donohue ’20 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19
NIGHT STAFF copy Jordan Antebi ’19 Minh Hoang ’19 design Dante Sudilovsky ’21
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday December 1, 2017
COURTESY OF PIXABAY
Legalization will benefit the state economy, generating $300 million in tax revenue.
Nadelmann: Student arrested for possession had to go through hell MARIJUANA Continued from page 1
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will help bring marijuana operators and financiers to the state and educate them about licensing, delivery, production, cultivation, dispensing, and distribution. Along with opening up a profitable industry, legalization is likely to benefit the state economically. New Jersey spends $127 million each year on marijuana possession enforcement costs, including marijuana possession arrests, which constitute the majority of drug possession arrests, the ‘Prince’ previously reported. Instead, the recreational marijuana program will generate about $300 million in tax revenue. Through collecting this tax revenue, the state has an opportunity to pay back the communities most affected by past drug laws. Last year, California passed a marijuana legalization
initiative that incorporated significant elements of social justice measures. Under Prop. 64, $50 million will be granted annually to support economic development, job placement, and legal services in communities disproportionately harmed by drug war policies, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, which helped draft the measure. DPA is a drug policy reform organization working to end the war on drugs. “People who had prior drug convictions would not be denied the opportunity to apply for license solely on that basis,” explained Ethan Nadelmann, founder and former executive director of DPA. Nadelmann taught politics and public affairs at the University from 1987 to 1994. “There needs to be a pathway in the industry for folks … who have been disproportionately harmed from marijuana prohibition,” said Kris Krane, founder and president of 4Front Ventures, an investing and consulting company.
The ownership of most of the companies in the marijuana industry looks a lot like corporate America: white and male, according to Krane. “If the barriers to entry are really high, particularly in terms of capital requirements, it makes it very difficult for people from marginalized communities to get involved,” explained Krane. “I think that’s a real shame if we wind up in a place where the people who are most harmed by marijuana prohibition don’t have an avenue to participate” in the legal market. However, there are more ways — through law and regulation — that the state can rectify this injustice. Pennsylvania uses a point scale to select which companies to award licenses for its medical marijuana program. Ten percent of the possible point total was awarded for a diversity plan outlining how the company places a priority on diversity in hiring practices, outreach, and affirmative action.
page 5 “That section wound up being the difference between the winners and losers in that [application] process,” said Krane. Another way to ensure people of color and low-income communities are not excluded from the legal market involves having the state grant equity licenses to those disproportionately affected by the marijuana prohibition, as California did. Additionally, states could require companies to show their commitment to justice reinvestment, which includes giving back to affected communities, often in creative ways such as building ball fields or supporting schools in the area. “New Jersey has the opportunity to really set the standard for what legalization on the East Coast is going to look like,” said Krane. In the 1980s, New Jersey was the only state in America in which more than 50 percent of all new commitments to state prisons were for drug law violations, according to Nadelmann. When Nadelmann was teaching, a student in one of his classes was arrested for marijuana possession. “He had to go through hell,” Nadelmann recalls, “and the hell he had to go through at Princeton, coming from a wealthy white family … was very different than a poor person of color getting caught in the same situation. But it was still absurd and ridiculous.” While teaching at the University, Nadelmann became increasingly critical of the war on drugs and argued for decriminalization. He said he was regarded as “hopelessly optimistic, utopian, a flake.” He calls the prospect of New Jersey becoming the first state to legalize marijuana through legislation “enormously satisfying.” Around the same time Nadelmann was working at the University, O’Beirne was getting involved with anti-drug war advocacy with his mother. “We saw it as a horrible travesty, a social justice nightmare,” he said, referring to it as “a truncation of freedom.” In the late 1980s, the benefits
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of cannabis were lesser known, but O’Beirne knew that marijuana was safer than the war on drugs. “We didn’t see marijuana as a gateway drug. We saw it as gateway for … the harm of people’s freedoms,” O’Beirne said. “Their liberty, property was confiscated … in the process of telling people they could not harvest and ingest this flower.” The war on drugs was a vicious cycle, according to Bucci, recalling how he would wait around in poor communities and arrest people who were buying marijuana from street dealers, considered the “low hanging fruit of the tree.” At the end of the day, Bucci would arrest the dealer, too. “That’s what we did just to keep the numbers up, to keep the federal money flowing into the state,” he explained, “because the more arrests we made, the more money we got from the the federal government.” Bucci thinks marijuana legalization is start but that “heavier drugs” should also be decriminalized. “Heroin is a dangerous drug,” he said, “but we have other drugs out there that are legal that are more dangerous than heroin,” such as fentanyl and carfentanil, which are 100 times stronger than morphine. DPA takes a public health approach to drug law, stating that “our focus should be on the harm caused by drug use and the harm caused by our policy responses to it.” New Jersey’s legalization of marijuana will be an historic first step, and a chance to “right a historical wrong,” as Krane puts it. O’Beirne hopes to see “significant steps” taken with the legislation before June 2018, noting that the process is lengthy. O’Beirne is confident in the future of the state’s drug policy. “The governor-elect’s vision is fantastic and right on,” he said. “We think that the amount of understanding — that this is something that is a net benefit for our state — will help us drive regulation and legislation quickly.”
Sports
Friday December 1, 2017
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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
Princeton hosts Big Al Invitational By Alissa Selover contributor
This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (Dec. 1 through 3), Princeton will be hosting the Big Al Invitational for men’s and women’s swimming and diving at DeNunzio Pool. This invitational is one of the biggest early-season collegiate swimming and diving meets. Moreover, Princeton will be facing many teams that it has not yet competed against — seventeen teams, nine women’s and eight men’s, will be traveling to compete in Princeton this weekend. The women’s teams are Brown, Dartmouth, Rutgers, William & Mary, University of Miami, Johns Hopkins, Rider University, Villanova, and Princeton. The men’s teams competing are Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Rider, Rutgers, Villanova, and William & Mary. Both swimming and diving will take place during all three days of the invitational. Each day of competition will include a morning prelims session and a finals session in the evening. Prelims will begin at 10 a.m. on Friday and Saturday with finals starting at 6 p.m. these two days. Sunday prelims will begin at 9 a.m., with finals starting at 5 p.m. Princeton’s women’s swimming and diving team is currently 4–2
overall and 2–0 in conference. Of the teams traveling to compete this weekend, the women’s team found a win over University of Miami on Nov. 3 (198.5–100.5) but has not faced any of the other teams. During their Ivy League opener Nov. 18, the Tigers beat both Cornell University (233–67) and University of Pennsylvania (182–118). The women could potentially see strong performances from first-years on the team who have proven themselves. Firstyears Jenny Ma, Courtney Tseng, and Regan Barney have all picked up top five places in their events recently. First-years Sophia Peifer and Sine Scribbick could also contribute to Princeton’s scores with their diving performances. Juniors Isabel Reis and Joanna Curry had strong performances during their Ivy League opener and could additionally help lead the Tigers to a win. The men’s swimming and diving team is 3–2 overall while maintaining an undefeated record of 2–0 in its conference. The men’s team has not faced any of the teams traveling to them this weekend but in their Ivy League opener Nov. 17, the men beat both University of Pennsylvania (157–143) and Cornell University (259.5–40.5). The men’s team had some incredible performances at
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Women’s swimming and diving will host the Big Al Invitational at DeNunzio Pool this weekend.
the Ivy League Opener by first-year Colten Young, who swept his two diving events during the weekend. For swimming, junior Cole Buese stood out with his win in the 200 back and his secondplace position in the 200
f ly. The first-years on the swim team stood out during the opener. Firstyear Levy Nathan won the 500 free, while first-year Corey Lau won the 100 breast, barely beating the second-place winner, junior Tyler Lin.
Great things could come out of the matchups this weekend. The entire invitational will be live streamed on the Ivy League Network and live results of all sessions will be posted throughout the weekend.
MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Men’s basketball heads to Florida as women look to bounce back at home
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Women’s basketball will play Delaware State this weekend at Jadwin Gym while the men travel to Miami.
By Samantha Shapiro staff writer
Princeton men’s basketball will face University of Miami this Saturday at 8 p.m. The team will compete at a neutral location in Miami, where the Tigers will have the opportunity to test an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent before entering Ivy League play in the New Year. Princeton’s record is 2–4, with the team com-
ing off a loss-free Lehigh last Wednesday. “I think we need to work on stringing 40 minutes together. We had a good first half against Fairleigh Dickinson and a good second half against Lehigh, so now it comes down to just keeping the energy for the entire 40 minutes,” said sophomore Will Gladson. After losing three starters, the team is working to rebuild by experimenting with different lineups.
Tweet of the Day Recap: #BellaBuckets just misses another doubledouble, No. 24/25 Villanova holds off Princeton #TigerUp #PUWBB Princeton Women’s Basketball @PrincetonWBB
Princeton has especially looked to its strong firstyear class for support on the court this year. Firstyears Ryan Schwieger and Sebastian Much have recently made key plays off the bench, helping the team a great deal. UMiami is coming in 6–0, fresh off a win over Minnesota. It will be a challenging matchup for the Tigers. “They’re great in transition,” said Gladson, adding that “transition has been a problem for us
somewhat this year.” Miami plays fast; its lineup features size and speed, including five-foot, seven-inch guard Chris Lykes and 6’11” Dewan Huell. “Our schedule only gets harder from here — we have a couple top-10 teams lined up,” said Gladson. “As coach always says, we’re built to beat the best teams on our schedule, so if we can knock off some of these top 25 teams, then that would be great, especially going into conference play. We’re just trying to get better everyday.” Princeton women’s basketball will play the Delaware Hens this Saturday at 5 p.m. at Jadwin Gymnasium. The Tigers hope to bounce back after a close loss to Villanova last Wednesday. In that game, the team was unable to narrow a nine-point deficit with four minutes left, and lost by three. With a 3–2 overall record, Princeton has faced some challenging out-of-league ACC opponents in Villanova and Georgia Tech. “Villanova was a top-25 team. It would have been huge to beat them, but to know that we were toeto-toe with them says a
Stat of the Day
16 championships Princeton has won 16 Ivy League women’s volleyball championships, more than any other team in the league.
lot about our team and the future of our season,” said sophomore Bella Alarie. “It came down to little plays. Coming off of this past game, we definitely need to keep our energy up in every quarter and not let leads get to our head.” Alarie has had an exceptional season, and had a stellar performance against Villanova, with a career-high 29 points. On her recent performance, Alarie remarked, “My goal every game is to get a double-double. Trying to stay versatile is my biggest goal on offense.” The matchup with Delaware will be an interesting one for Alarie. “I used to play AAU basketball with [its] star player [Nicole Anabosi]. She’s averaging a double-double so we’re definitely going to have to shut her down,” noted Alarie. The Hens have a 4–3 record overall; their last game was a onepoint victory against St. Bonaventure. With five more games remaining before Ivy League play commences, Princeton hopes to build its confidence and “get [its] record up,” as Alarie noted.
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