CAPTION: Michael Glenn, left, after winning KSHAA Forensics 2A State in Extemporaneous Speech with his coach, Mrs. Karin Neal.
By Michael Glenn
It only took me until the last week that I am a high schooler, but I won a state championship.
Now you may ask yourselves, “What could Michael do outside of work that he has time to win a championship for?”
And that would be a good question. I don’t know the answer to it. But what I do know is after waking up at 5:30 a.m. and getting back to Hutch at 9:00 p.m., it surely wasn’t easy.
I took first place in Extemporaneous Speech, a “draw” event in forensics. What that means is I give a new speech every time I perform. I draw a topic out of an envelope, usually about politics, government, business, environment, etc., and then get 30 minutes to prepare a five to seven-minute speech.
I did not expect to get first place, let alone last until the final round. I had spent much more time on my Original Oration, a persuasive speech that is memorized and 10 minutes long.
When I wrote about why speech and debate are so important for high schoolers, I told you I would share my oration with you about legalizing cannabis. I think it’s really fun and entertaining, as well as a piece that makes you question our current laws. I’ve annotated the speech (check for the parentheses) to give you an idea of how I would perform it.
Like a rolling stone(r)
(Sung, like Bob Dylan) “For the times, they are a-changin’!” Bob Dylan’s 1964 anthem “The Times, they are a-changin’” took the world by storm as Dylan’s break-out album challenged racial inequality still lingering in American society at the time. Dylan performed the song at folk festivals and live crowds where participants would join in during the chorus, hoping to have the audience join in the fight for equality. Through all of this, the United States was undergoing a radical change in music taste and culture. Teenagers were tired of music from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and with Elvis Presley in Hollywood rather than the recording studio, Americans were ready for a time change. In 1964, The Beatles released “Please Please Me” which took America by storm, the same year as Dylan’s protest anthem. While publishing different musical genres, both of these up-and-coming musicians had an underlying similarity: they both smoked cannabis. Cannabis was made an illegal drug in the United States in 1937, and had established a black market by the 1960s. Today, cannabis remains illegal in the state of Kansas, although all states that surround our own have legalized the drug in some fashion. The United States should federally legalize recreational cannabis. First, we will look at the effects cannabis had on two different musicians, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and second, we will look at the negative effects criminalization has had on our nation and state.
When asked, “Who is the greatest songwriter in American history?” Bob Dylan enters the conversation, penning over 40 albums through a 60-year music career. In fact, “Rolling Stone” magazine published “The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time” and put Dylan at number one. Dylan, originally named Robert Zimmerman, dropped out of college and moved to New York, meeting his musical hero, Woody Guthrie. It is unknown when Dylan began smoking weed, but the drug became synonymous with his image and style. PlayBoy magazine interviewed Dylan and asked him about his drug use in 1966. While he said people should avoid hard drugs he considered dangerous, (Quote said in a hilarious Bob Dylan accent, eyes squinted, looking in the distance at nothing in particular) “But opium and hash and pot…they just bend your mind a little. I think everybody’s mind should be bent once in a while.” Dylan, in the lyrics for his song, “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” the opening track on his acclaimed album, Blonde on Blonde, simply put, “Everybody must get stoned.”
(Sung in Bob Dylan voice, miming holding a joint in right hand) “Everybody must get stoned,” Dylan said as he passed the joint to The Beatles in a 1964 meeting with the Fab Four in New York. The quintessential story of Bob Dylan giving The Beatles their first cannabis experience has eroded itself into the history books and is often asked by TV show hosts and interviewers to this day to the remaining two Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Dylan incorrectly assumed the lyrics of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as “I get high, I get high” instead of “I can’t hide, I can’t hide,” and lit up with the Fab Four. After the first smoke, The Beatles underwent a major musical change. In 1965, The Beatles slowly began to write more psychedelic and less traditional rock-and-roll music, releasing “Rubber Soul” in 1965 and “Revolver,” the first true psychedelic album in modern history, one year later in 1966. In fact, “Rubber Soul” album spent eight weeks at No.1 in the UK and six weeks at No.1 in the US, and was still in the US Top 20 when the group returned to Abbey Road studios in April ’66 to begin recording material for their next new album. Far Out Magazine wrote that The Beatles began to write a more mellow style of music and depart from the style of rock that made them famous, “in a simpler sense, they were also courting edginess much more keenly. Whether it was the weed or simply growing maturity, they ditched pop formulas and started to do what they wanted; which, fittingly, was to ‘experiment’ with sound.” The Beatles experimented with their sounds in recording studios, never returning to a stage as a band after 1966, and releasing their final album, Let it Be, in 1970. Fast forward to 1972. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were charged with possession of cannabis in London in 1972, which caused President Richard Nixon to begin a deportation campaign for both singers. The campaign was wildly unsuccessful, with even Bob Dylan writing to Nixon to keep the singing pair in the United States. (Once again, done in a Bob Dylan accent) “Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!” The next year in 1973, Paul McCartney was working on his latest album when BAM, McCartney was charged with possession and cultivation of cannabis. On his farm, McCartney was arrested after police found Paul was growing his own weed. In his defense, McCartney said that (Done in a “extraordinarily good” Paul McCartney impression) “Cannabis is less harmful than rum punch, whiskey, nicotine and glue, all of which are perfectly legal. I don’t think I was doing anyone any harm whatsoever.”
And McCartney was right. Cannabis is safer to consume than many other drugs that are allowed in the United States, such as alcohol and tobacco. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol-related deaths kill 178,000 people a year. Tobacco-related deaths kill 480,000 people a year. Cannabis-related deaths kill 0 people a year. In a 2006 research study conducted by the American Scientist magazine, it takes consuming approximately 10 times the effective amount of alcohol to prove fatal, where the effective amount is two drinks. That means that someone, on a given night, would have to drink 20 standard drinks to consume enough alcohol to kill them. To die from cannabis, one would have to consume 1,000 times the effective dose to overdose, which is impossible to consume. In fact, Yale University researched the health benefits and risks of using cannabis and found out that “Cannabis has been shown to have many beneficial and therapeutic effects on both physical and mental health. However, people may be hesitant to seek medical cannabis treatment due to fear of legal repercussions if cannabis is illegal. Legalization can allow more people to enjoy better health outcomes. It can also promote the safer use of cannabis by educating the public on appropriate cannabis use and providing quality control measures for cannabis products.” Yale also argues that cannabis legalization could have improvements on the environment through industrial hemp production and for racial equity amongst Americans, as African Americans are charged for possession of cannabis at a 5.1:1 rate compared to white people, even though studies have shown that the use of cannabis remains equal amongst racial groups. Legalizing cannabis will also save lives. Since cannabis is still federally illegal, there remains a black market where cannabis can be “cut” or adulterated with other substances that can be fatal, including fentanyl and cocaine. According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Taking cannabis out of that particular space is a great idea. You’re taking it out of the illegal market and giving it to legitimate businesses where there is going to be oversight and testing of products, so you know what you’re getting. And these products undergo quality control and are labeled.” Even for those that have no interest in using cannabis, there are numerous benefits that cannabis legalization would provide everyone. For example, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue, the state has made $2.8 billion in ten years of cannabis legalization from cannabis taxes alone. The marijuana tax cash fund, which receives the largest share of cannabis-related revenue, must be used for health care, health education, substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, and law enforcement. State lawmakers decided exactly how it’s spent. Since 2019, Missouri’s legal medical marijuana has brought in $85.2 million, whose funds go to help veterans, public defenders and drug treatment programs.
Bob Dylan and The Beatles have individually claimed their seats in music royalty, each within their own genres, fields and albums. Based on their personal, well-documented experiences with cannabis, along with numerous studies that have debunked myths and highlighted the benefits of legalization, it’s time for the federal government to take action. Call your local representatives and senators to encourage them to support cannabis legalization. Get involved with campaigns to legalize cannabis, such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Cannabis has currently been decriminalized or legalized in 39 out of the 50 states in the United States, and (Sung) “The Times, they are, a changin’!” for equity in the law.
Forensics has been one of my favorite high school activities that I’ve been able to share with my best friends. My current friends, older and my age, have all stemmed from forensics and theatre. Without those activities, I would be a completely different person.
I’m grateful for my forensics coaches, Mrs. Karin Neal and Mr. Isaac Miller. Something interesting is that Mrs. Neal coached Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller, an alumnus of Trinity, was the last competitor to win a state championship in 2019.
It only took six years, but I’m glad to say we brought three more home Saturday.
Three more? My best friend, Mary Newboles, took home two state championships, a first for her as well. She won the Poetry and Serious Solo Acting categories.
With forensics complete, I have very little of high school left. There’s three days this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for finals, and then we’re done besides graduation on Sunday. I’m trying to cherish the moments but they are moving too fast! Nevertheless, next Sunday I will no longer be a student but a graduate of Trinity, the place I’ve been blessed at calling home these six years.
