This week I really got a lot of great information to be used in my article. I met with two West Lafayette police officers, and with the director of Purdue Legal Services. I learned a lot, and I feel that I got a significant amount of information.

I met with Captain Arthur Choate and Lieutenant Jon Eager on Monday, March 9th. They talked to me about impaired driving, issues in states where weed is legal, medical marijuana, arrests, opinion, and more. These officers were more open with their opinions and gave me a little more information than the Purdue police did. They also sent me statistical numbers for marijuana arrests in West Lafayette over the past five years, which will help infographics in my article.

The meeting with Leslie Charter, Purdue Legal Services director, went smoothly as well. I really learned a lot from her and how student perceptions of what she does can be wrong. I thought that Mrs. Charters was a representative for Purdue students. This is not the case. She does not represent any students in court. She is there to give students the best possible legal advice for their situation and to explain legal terms to them. She helps them understand what the likely outcome of their case might be. If a student does need/want representation, she gives them names of attorneys to contact. She stated that the majority of cases she helps is issues with landlords, and then criminal cases being the second most common. She also sent me a lot of statistical numbers about many factors of marijuana (like number of arrests, OWI charges, etc.) because she had just given a presentation on her marijuana research.

I plan on interviewing the student I am in charge of from the survey next week. She has responded, but we do not have a set day or anything like that.

Now, I am going to start compiling all the data I have received from the police officers and Leslie in order to determine the best ways to incorporate all the information in my survey. I will be working on these graphics.

This week was helpful because we are starting to get a clear view of the finish line. I kept sending out the survey link to all my groups messages in order to get more responses. In class we divided up the survey responses that we have received so far in order to begin working on interviews with students. I emailed the student I am in charge of interviewing, but she has not responded yet. If she does not respond by tomorrow morning, I will email her again tomorrow.

Speaking of interviews, I scheduled more for this coming week! I have an interview on Monday with Arthur Choate, a West Lafayette Police Captain who is in charge of special services including the DARE program and other outreach programs. Along with Captain Choate, Lieutenant Jon Eager will be joining us who is also an officer for the West Lafayette Police Department. Eager is an investigating commander and has been researching drugs, especially marijuana, for years. Some of the questions I have prepared for the interview are:

1. Since marijuana is so common these days, do you guys tend to be less harsh for arrests or is that only up to police discretion?
2. Would you say you have a significant amount of arrests in the Chauncey area opposed to the rest of West Lafayette? 
3. Do you have to verify that the person being arrested is a student?
4. Do you send all the arrests to the Dean if they are a student?
5. How do you make the decision whether or not to arrest the person and take them to jail or just give them a ticket? Do prior convictions count toward this decision? 

1. What are the efforts of DARE now? 
2. Is DARE still being taught in schools?
3. Do you emphasize marijuana in DARE since it is so common?

1. In your professional opinion, do you think marijuana is a major gateway drug? Do you notice this in the civilians you arrest? 
2. Have you researched the health effects of marijuana?
   1. if so, how do you see it affecting people’s overall health?
3. Does smoking marijuana significantly impair driving? 

Then on Wednesday, I have an interview scheduled with the Purdue Student Legal Services Director, Leslie Charters. I will be asking her questions based on how students are affected by marijuana charges that go to the Dean of Students and what the Student Legal Services do to help these students. I am curious about how far these charges go in order for the student to be dismissed from the university. What does the discipline look like for a student who gets in trouble for marijuana?

Now, I am doing research on those who I will be interviewing to prepare for the meetings.

This week was a fun week for me as I finally had the chance to begin my interviewing process. On Monday, February 24th, I was able to meet with Purdue Police Chief John Cox and Captain Song Kang from the Purdue Police Dept. I met them at the police department for a short interview and I did learn a lot for the content of my article. They gave some of their professional opinions stating that they believe marijuana is one of the strongest gateway drugs, and that it is the definite majority of all drug cases on campus. All citations that Purdue police give are sent to the Dean of Students at Purdue as well. I think these all make interesting points for my article.

Other than interviewing with those listed above, I have reached out to the officer who is in charge of the DARE program in West Lafayette, but I have received no responses yet. I have been trying to get a directory/list of West Lafayette police so that I have more options for people to interview with. As of now, John Cox and Song Kang are the only two who have responded to meeting with me.

This week was also an important week because we finished our survey in class. I have been sharing the link in the groups I am a part of on campus in order to get a high number of respondents.

This week we prepared the survey to be sent out for students/faculty to take. Figuring out the direction we wanted to take with the survey helped out with my ideas for the direction I wanted to take in my own article.

Other than making the survey, this week was more of a waiting game for me. I have been waiting to see if those I requested an interview with would respond to my emails. On Friday (2/21) the Purdue Police Dept. responded to my email stating that the Purdue Police Chief, John Cox, is willing to speak to me about my interview. He is a very busy man with a tight schedule, so we are meeting in person for a half an hour on Monday (2/24) in the morning. I have been preparing the questions that I wrote in my blog last week and determining which are the most important questions I want to ask him in this short time that I get to meet with him. The main question that I want to ask is, “If/when marijuana becomes legal in Indiana, how will this affect the work of police?” and ” Will the legalization cause more issues, according to his opinion, or will it allow them to focus on other (more serious) crimes?”

I have mainly been preparing my interview and making sure I have everything I need to meet with him.

For this week’s blog, I will discuss some of the questions I have been thinking about to ask my interviewees. I have mentioned in my previous blog who I am planning on interviewing: Purdue Police Chief John Cox, Lt. Stason Wiete, and Dr. Bert Useem. I am hoping to possibly interview one other police officer, which I plan to ask John Cox if he knows of any other policemen willing to talk to me about the subject of marijuana.

In class, we went over some questions that will help me specifically in my interviews. These questions include:

• What constitutes an arrest for possession of marijuana versus the dealing of marijuana? since the amount of dealing arrests are very low 
• Have you been decreasing the amount of marijuana arrest you make, or are there fewer incidents dealing with marijuana? (trying to explain the trend of there being such a decrease in cases in 2019)
• Where do you find most cases to occur? In dorms? Near Chauncey area? Or is it pretty equally spread out?
  1. where are most arrests made?
• When you say “marijuana cases” are you referring to arrests or just tickets or altercations? 
• What is the most common way to be tipped off for a marijuana case?
• Why has there been a decrease from 2017-2019? 
  1. there was a 56% decrease from 2017 to 2019. Why?
•  What time of year, time of day, day of week are these cases most common?
• What is the amount that you arrest for? 
• Details on if the students they arrest are from out of state (specifically where it is legal)
• What form of marijuana are you catching most frequently? Dab pens (electronic smoking device)? 
• Referral/citation versus arrest? How do you decide what to do? 
• Do you think there would be complications regarding the legalization of marijuana in Indiana? do you think it will happen?
• How has the legalization in Illinois affected the amount of use you see, if any? 
• Is there a DARE officer that reaches out in the community? 
• How serious are you about the arresting of marijuana versus other drugs/alcohol? 
• Are you hearing anything about “C’mon man it should be legal by now” from those they have altercations with?
• Do you consider the fact that these students could be kicked out of Purdue when making arrests? 

Most of these questions are in relation to the trend we have viewed in class (the high accounts of marijuana in 2017 and the massive decrease in 2019). Besides the factual information policemen can provide for me, I am interested in their opinions. I will ask opinion-based questions as well:

• How do you feel about the legalization of marijuana in Indiana?
• Do you think that if marijuana was legalized your job would be more effective in cracking down on more serious crimes? Would it not matter?
• Would you have more time to focus on more serious issues?
• Do you think smoking marijuana is a serious issue?
• How do you see it affecting people?
• Do you think it correlates to the use of other, more serious drugs?
• What other issues do you think will arise if marijuana is legal? Would this put more on your plate?

These are some questions hoping to gain insight on what policemen actually think about their encounters with those with marijuana. The questions I have now are some that I have thought of, but I will continue to edit them and form them to the actual person I am interviewing.

This week we had our outlines/preliminary research due. I posted my outline in another blog post on this site. Please add any comments you deem necessary!

With that being said, I spent most of this week working on planning the outline of my story, what my focus was, what my main questions are, and who I can interview. My main focus is on the opinions/voices of police officers, since their work is involved with the legalization of marijuana. The main questions I want to ask are: How would the legalization of marijuana effect police work? Would it make their work more effective? Or do they think that it is beneficial to keep our laws the way they are? What is the difference between arresting someone for marijuana versus giving a citation? How does marijuana charges effect Purdue students? What are police officers opinions on marijuana in general? Have you stopped arresting students for marijuana?

I want to find the number of arrests (with concerns to marijuana) over the past 5 years as well as the number since Illinois has legalized marijuana. I think statistics are very important to this story and I want to get as much direct evidence from the policemen themselves in my interviews.

The prior sheriff I had as a professor responded to my email this week. He unfortunately is unable to meet with me due to health reasons, but he did give me names to interview. Purdue Police Chief John Cox, Lt. Stason Wiete, and Dr. Bert Useem (Professor of Sociology) were the names I was given and want to interview. So far I have reached out to Dr. Bert Useem and asked for an in-person interview. Next week, I plan to reach out to the other two once I learn a little more about interviewing in class.

I am going to post the outline I have written up on my blog so that Professor Natt can see it as well. This way my ideas can be shared and comments can be made on any other ideas anyone else may have concerning my topic.

Marijuana: Police Officer Perspective

1. The story I want to share is from the perspective of police officers. Marijuana laws affect those who enjoy marijuana/benefit from marijuana, but there is another side who is affected by these laws; and these are law enforcers. Police officers are obviously affected everywhere by marijuana laws, but especially where the surrounding states have legalized marijuana, such as Indiana. How are policemen dealing with all surrounding states legalizing marijuana? I want to explore how the work of these officers are affected, especially being on a college campus where diversity is such a strong presence. Through interviews with local officers, I can find some perspective on this question and also get opinions on how they think legalizing marijuana in Indiana would affect Purdue. 
2. Questions I want answered: 
   1. How much time is spent on the reprimanding of civilians with concerns to marijuana?
   2. How has the legalization of marijuana in the surrounding states of Indiana affected marijuana use on Purdue’s campus/in the West Lafayette area?
   3. Would the legalization of marijuana benefit or harm the work of policemen? What good could come from it? What are the concerns?
   4. Is taking care of marijuana cases distracting them on focusing on larger crimes? Or is it beneficial to take care of these cases? Does legal weed make police officers more effective?
   5. What are police thoughts about legalizing marijuana in Indiana?
3. Who I will interview: 
   1. Purdue Police Chief John Cox
      1. I can find his contact information from Purdue Police Dept. website with more research. I have not found it yet, but if I cannot find it then I can contact the Senior Director, Carol Shelby.
   2. Lt. Stason Wiete
      1. He was a guest speaker at one of my classes last year. I can get his contact information from the professor I had for that class. I have already emailed him asking for it. 
   3. One other police officer, which I can hopefully obtain from these previous interviews. 
   4. Dr. Bert Useem (Professor of Sociology at Purdue)
      1. He taught one of my classes about Sociology and Prisons. I think he would have good insight on how marijuana interacts with society based on his area of study.
4. Story angle:
   1. My story angle will be primarily focused on the interviews and the questions that I have. It will be informational, which will not be biased or political. I will take a neutral tone on the matter and ask questions from a neutral perspective.
5. Numbers and statistics
   1. How many arrests/altercations were handled since the start of 2020 concerning marijuana. 
      1. I will get these statistics hopefully from the policemen I interview. 
      2. Need to obtain the difference in arrest and citation when handling a marijuana case. How to determine to go on with an arrest?
   2. An overall statistic of marijuana cases over the past 5 years.
   3. The percentage of students who admit to use of marijuana.
   4. How many students are fined for marijuana use, especially when they are caught in the dorms
   5. Overall statistic of the general opinion on marijuana of policemen (if possible)
6. Background information
   1. I already know that some of the major concerns with the surrounding states legalizing marijuana is that people are driving across state borders with possession of marijuana. More drivers with possession means more arrests for police to make.
   2. There is no testable way of proving someone is under the influence of marijuana which can cause more accidents since more people would be driving under the influence if marijuana was legalized. This can cause danger to the roads. 
   3. More research I need to perform is on: 
      1. Arrest records
      2. How many students are fined with marijuana
         1. What happens to them when they are fined? Caught by an RA? 
      3. More articles already written on this topic. 
         1. I have found some from Colorado/West Coast…is there any about Indiana?

Here is a picture of the lists I had prepared for class on the topic of Cold Comfort, a reading for class. I have a list of things from the story I would have pitched and a list of things I would have to justify if I were to pitch this story to a group. Thank you!! 🙂

This week was a refresher. It felt nice to get organized and figure out due dates for our major project milestones.

I did a lot more research this week as I was looking mainly on social media sites for contacts. I was researching the Purdue Police Department and West Lafayette Police Department on Facebook to see if they had any posts about marijuana. I did not find a lot of posts about marijuana, I mostly found posts about the departments themselves and got contact information for the departments.

I mentioned in class that I had a criminology professor that had been a sheriff for West Lafayette. I found his name in my email archives and I sent him an email requesting for an interview. He hasn’t responded yet, but if he does, then I have planned on asking him some questions about what he thinks about the problems of marijuana. I want to ask him what he thinks the legalization of marijuana will do to Indiana, and specifically the Purdue campus. I also want to ask him for more contacts in the West Lafayette PD or Purdue PD I could pursue for more interviews.

I am still figuring out how I can best organize my article as of now, and have been working on ideas for an outline right now. I am thinking of centering my article on the interviews I have with the police departments so that I can make my article solely about what these police officers have to say about the arrests/legalization/opinions concerning marijuana.

This week we really got into the basics of the course project. In class we talked about ideas we can write about under our marijuana theme. I think this is going to be a fun semester project to work on.

In time outside of class, I worked on the brainstorming of ideas, researching of my topics, and writing of my pitch. I came up with the idea that I would write my individual story on: how marijuana affects police officers. Marijuana does not only affect those who are smoking it. The industry of marijuana/legalizing marijuana affects everyone involved, which the police are one of the sides involved. I have talked about thoughts of legalization of marijuana with a police officer before and was very interested. I worked for a criminal lawyer and saw many cases dealing with possession of marijuana charges. Police officers and lawyers are involved in marijuana cases, and I want to get insight on what they think about the drug. Is arresting individuals for possession of marijuana a waste of time, or is it a drug that needs to be taken care of?

I found interesting previous research online when I Googled “how marijuana affects the police.” I found a few articles explaining some officer concerns about how there is no way to detect marijuana in people’s systems, especially for safe driving purposes. This poses a problem due to driving under the influence of marijuana is unsafe, yet there is no way for police officers to reprimand those who are driving this way because there is no factual way to detect the marijuana in their system. With further research, I will hopefully understand how police officers are treating this problem in states where it is already legal.

Once I secured my article idea, I began thinking about my pitch. I used the guide given to our class via BlackBoard and wrote out the main points of my pitch that I was going to give in class on Thursday. When I was finished writing out my main points and felt confident in what I had written, I talked about my pitch with a couple friends before presenting the idea in class on Thursday.

At the Exponent, I was very comfortable when I was speaking about my idea. We discussed how I will be interviewing Purdue police and West Lafayette police. I also mentioned some contacts I know in order to get me into interviews with locals officers. My idea was approved, and I now understand what information I need to focus on moving forward.