A few weeks ago a High School student from Colorado was outright denied admission to Texas Wesleyan University. And why? Well, because he comes from the drug state of course.

The head baseball coach from TWU, Mike Jeffcoat, responded to a student from Colorado’s application in an emailing saying, “…in the past, players [from Colorado] have had trouble passing our drug test”, therefore why even bother evaluating his credentials. Fortunately the university had the common decency to remove this discriminatory staff member, but it does raise a variety of critical questions and concerns. Regardless of whether or not he was fired, why are those recruiting college athletes so concerned with students applying from Colorado? And why is this one of the first and primary characteristics and behavior perceived of high schoolers? Is everyone high here? Well, that is how most, if not all other states are starting to define us as… a mess of drugged kids that they don’t want anymore.

If the thought of this does not break your heart, then it definitely should. Young adults from Colorado are seemingly losing the ability to speak for themselves, as Colorado and its increasingly worsening reputation is speaking for them. Although college admissions is currently by no means an overwhelmingly prominent problem, we cannot allow the commercialization of this drug culture to dictate the future of so many bright minds. We will not allow the potential of our students go to waste by allowing them to be defined by the misconception of our state.Because who knows, maybe this will happen again. And who knows, maybe this is actually happening right now. It seems as if we are not seeing quite as clearly as we once did.

But unfortunately, there are countless of kids applying for higher education who currently are struggling with drug use. So it comes as no real surprise why these academic establishments are having such a difficult time trusting the inherent characteristics of those applying from Colorado. So how do we change this? How can we stop this? How can we encourage our students, and rebuild the reputation that Marijuana has so quickly lost?

And lastly, how can you help?

Well, to start with getting involved with MAC. Then you can help take our state back.