With graduation on the horizon, the debt accrued during college is a black cloud weighing over seniors. By Bethany Morris

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Since when does Black Friday start on Thursday?

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Editor’s Note: Due to the nature of the subject, we have decided to provide anonymity to the University of Colorado Boulder student profiled below. A pseudonym has been entered in place of his real identity.

He started dealing Adderall when he was a freshman in high school. Now a junior at CU, John doesn’t have any plans to stop; business is good.

Before moving to Boulder, John was part of an operation that grew from selling to his high school peers to dealing his surrounding towns. The drug operation eventually spanned his entire county.

A cut in half 10 mg pill of Adderall is displayed in a pill case. (Gary Sheer/CU Independent Photo Illustration)

“I started doing it for some extra cash,” he said. “Some people I knew actually needed it, and some just wanted to get high.”

Adderall and similar amphetamines are used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but recreational use and use as a study aid is popular on campuses.

Two students were recently arrested at the Center for Community for unlawful sale and possession of the drug.

“[Adderall] tends to make you more focused and attentive,” Dr. Emily McCort, a psychiatrist at Wardenburg, said. “If you take too much, some of the side effects are psychosis and agitation, insomnia and tremor, an increase in heart rate or arrhythmia.”

On average, John sells about 60 pills a month for about $10 each. He sold to friends and other students when he still lived on campus, but now, living off-campus, he has expanded his pool of customers.

“I used to sell mostly to students when I was a freshman, those were the people I knew,” he said. “Now that I’m off-campus, the average person that comes over to my house is no younger than 28-50.”

Unless the people he’s dealing to are friends, John says he doesn’t sell to CU students so he can protect his identity and his reputation as a dealer. John said he equates being older with being trustworthy, and he trusts people out of college to keep his identity and illegal activities from police.

“I don’t really sell to CU kids because they know me,” John says. “I sell to older people because they are either buying or selling other drugs, and they don’t rob or steal.”

With up to 180 pills on-hand at a time, John keeps a steady stream of business from the contacts that he’s made. Proud of the fact that he’s hard to find, John is able to charge more to the people who do manage to initiate contact. He does get busy at certain times of the year.

“Last year during finals I turned my phone off because random people were calling me,” he said. “I turned it on right after finals. I could have filled 150 pills.”

He does not take Adderall himself anymore, he said, because he doesn’t like the way it makes him feel, but the doctors who prescribe him the drug don’t know that.

John has been getting a lot of Vyvanse recently, which he trades for some of his supply of Adderall. He gets the Vyvanse in 70mg capsules and often cuts it with antidepressants.

“People I don’t like get Vyvanse with antidepressants,” he says. “It tastes the same and it’s not noticeable for several days. I can cut it up to six times, I’ve done more and I’ve done less.”

Vyvanse is another prescription medication that is used to treat ADHD. It comes in dosages from anywhere between 30-70mg and is prescribed to be taken once daily.

“Vyvanse is a more modern drug that was designed and released to help decrease the abuse of Adderall,” McCort said.

CU Police Department Spokesperson Ryan Huff said that they see an influx of cases involving prescription drugs this time of year.

“It’s important that students know that possession of drugs not prescribed to them is a felony,” Huff said. “It’s also a felony to provide your own prescription drugs to others who don’t have a prescription.”

John has been in the game for years and has not been caught, although he said he has seen police watching his house from time to time.

“I’ve been watched a lot by the cops, they’ve consistently done sketchy things,” he said. “I haven’t gotten caught and it’s because the people I know and who I associate with don’t do it out of common respect or fear.”

As a precaution, he uses an alias when dealing. He also owns multiple cellphones and email addresses that only his customers know of. Even though several layers of protection shield him, John still won’t answer the door unless he’s expecting company.

“If someone comes I don’t answer if I’m not expecting them,” he said. “I’m cautious, I’ve been doing this a long time so I’m good at it. I’m careful.”

His careful and methodical practices appear to have worked so far.

This story has been modified from its original version for grammar and structure alterations.

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.

CU announced today that it will begin the process of creating two new colleges on campus.

If approved these will be the first new colleges in 50 years. The proposed colleges will be: a college focused on media, communication and information, and also a college focused on environment and sustainability. Both colleges will have to be approved by the Board of Regents before building and transitioning begins.

The new college devoted to media will house journalism, advertising, design, communication, film production and studies and media studies.

“From this college, we will create working journalists, editors and media professionals, communication scholars, media experts, advertisers and media designers, filmmakers and film theorists, and experts in the emerging field of information architecture and design,” said Provost Russell L. Moore in a released statement. ”The possibilities are truly exciting.”

The college of environment and sustainability “will bring together in one college a concentration of faculty who represent some of CU-Boulder’s mostly highly ranked, and highly successful, research in environmental sciences,” Moore said.

The next steps according to Moore are to form committees, plan budgets and work to integrate the new institutions with the existing programs. The objective, according to Moore, is to have a proposal submitted to the Board of Regents within a year and begin enrolling students by 2015.

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.

The opinions herein do not represent the staff of CU Independent or any of its sponsors.

Editor’s Note: It is illegal to consume marijuana in public despite legalization of the drug in Colorado, so it remains illegal to “smoke freely in public,” as is stated in this edition of WTF News.

Contact CU Independent News Editors Avalon Jacka at Avalon.jacka@colorado.edu and Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.

4/20 in Boulder looks quiet so far.

Last year on April 20, the officials closed CU-Boulder’s campus to the public, spread fish fertilizer on Norlin Quad, threw a Wyclef Jean concert that saw little student attendance, and arrested three CU students for trespassing onto Norlin Quad.

Senior philosophy major Jonathan Edwards, front, speaks to the media after being arrested for going onto Norlin Quad. Junior astronomy and physics major John Demopoulos and senior international affairs major Gabriel Kuettel were also arrested for going on Norlin. (CU Independent/Robert R. Denton)

CU students John Demopoulos, Jonathan Edwards and Gabriel Kuettel were seen standing in front of Norlin Quad with signs and were later arrested after venturing onto the closed quad. The CU Independent interviewed one student, then 21-year-old John Demopoulos, moments prior to his arrest and sat down to talk with him one year later about what happened. 

Prior to his arrest, Demopoulos said that he first decided something was wrong with the police presence on campus when he saw a cart full of officers approach two kids who were smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.

“The protesting moment was in between class, I had a book bag on and 20 minutes,” Demopoulos said. “I wanted to acknowledge [the campus closure] to some degree and be like, ‘Hey people there’s something not right about this.’ So at the end of one of my classes, on a piece of lined paper I wrote ‘It’s April 20, 1984. Orwell was right.’ So it was kind of a humorous anecdote, but it also stirred the pot a little bit.”

While holding the sign, another student approached Demopoulos, then proceeded onto Norlin Quad and was quickly surrounded by police. While observing that interaction, Demopoulos met Edwards and Kuettel and decided to walk onto Norlin Quad.

“It was like we silently agreed with out any real gestures or verbal reference,” Demopoulos said. “We just walked on there together and weren’t seeking to cause a ruckus or be angry or aggressive towards something or just shake our fists at the system and scream. Why shouldn’t we be able to go on there?”

After a few moments of confusion, the trio was arrested and led away from the quad in front of national press. While being led away, Demopoulos said that he accepted the consequences of his actions.

“I was completely accepting of [my arrest], I had to be because it was an act of civil disobedience and it was a choice that I made,” he said. “I knew in my heart, I guess I could say, that what I was doing was what was true to me, what felt right. I didn’t feel like I was imposing an ideal or infringing on anybody’s rights or harming or disrupting anything. I chose to stand by that.”

Besides Demopoulos, Edwards and Kuettel hadn’t smoked marijuana or had any paraphernalia on them at their arrest. Demopoulos said that it was interesting that the protest on Duane was somehow allowed to proceed.

“It was ironic that they [protesters on Duane] were smoking and there wasn’t one person arrested,” he said.

The group was taken to county jail and was held for an estimated eight-and-a-half hours. In that time they became friends and discussed how they would proceed with the present charges against them. They were given summons and were released without having to post bail. The case went to the state level but was dropped. They were sentenced to spend their community service hours helping Amendment 64.

“I care about the school’s reputation just as much as they [the administration] do,” he said. “It’s another home in a lot of ways, but there’s a major disconnect, and that was demonstrated loud and clear last year.”

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu. 

According to various sources, there were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon that have left many injured.

Kara Goucher, a CU alum, had already finished the race when the explosions went off. She finished 6th in the race, and Goucher and her husband had already made it safely to their hotel room.

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris  at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu. 

On the final day of the 65th annual Conference on World Affairs, panelists spoke about their experiences in the gay community and what it means to be gay in a changing political and social climate.

The panel was held in Old Main from 1-2:20 p.m. on Friday. Charles Steinberg moderated the panel, which featured speakers Joel Gallant, Peter Lighte, Tammy Schultz and Sanho Tree.

Here are some key moments from the panel: 

Gallant

“If we could eliminate stigma and homophobia tomorrow, it would still be hard to be a young gay kid.”

“[Being] gay today depends on who you are, where you live and how much money you have.”

Lighte

On his experience about being a parent: “If somebody asks you or your kid, ‘Where’s the mother?’ is if you hesitate, then there’s something wrong.”

On being a parent: “The world gets different and delightfully ordinary.”

Schultz

“I didn’t come out until I was twenty-eight partly because I have Evangelical parents, and partly because I thought I could just be a workaholic and not have to deal with the other part of [being lesbian].”

“Given the fields I run in [military], I knew nothing would change if they didn’t know anybody who was gay.”

Tree

On Leviticus: “Imagine if that book had never been written. What would our politics look like today?”

“We’ve gone backwards in some ways. I look at social media apps, and it’s disturbing the way people describe themselves. When I hear “masculine” it’s the new light skin — a way to pass.”

 Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.  

CWA panelists discussed the complex relationship that humans have with food, how it has evolved and how to go about changing our eating habits for the betterment of the world.

(Josh Shettler/CU Independent Illustration)

The panel took place in Muenzinger Auditorium from 11-12:20 p.m. Friday. It was moderated by Dave Newport and featured panelists Zulfiqar Ahmad, Robert Egger, Tom Gold and Phillip James Walker. Ahmad works as an activist for peace in South East Asia. Egger is the founder and president of L.A. Kitchen, which distributes food to the aging population. Gold is a professor of sociology at UC Berkley and works to “improve understanding” with East Asia. Walker is an international lawyer and consultant who specializes in the reform of “conflict and post-conflict societies.”

Waste

“A huge amount of food is thrown away because it’s not perfect.” – Egger

On the changing attitudes in China: “Waste has never been a part of the Chinese culture.” –Gold

“There’s a profound waste that is overeating, and there’s a third profound waste, that is eating meat.” –Ahmad

Want

“At every given time in any given month, people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.” –Egger

“Not even 40-50 years ago there was a saying that you eat so you can live, not that you live so you can eat.” –Ahmad

 Culture

“I think of food as one of the most fundamental drivers in history.” –Walker

“We’re talking about the Silk Road and hundreds of thousands of years of contact that can be traced through food.” –Walker

“Food is an intimate activity that skips across cultures very quickly.” –Walker

On foodie culture in the Bay Area: “To get a reservation at the hottest new place and more importantly to be seen there is a great badge of honor.” –Gold

“Food has power, and you have to see that your money also has power. That’s how you spend it.” –Egger

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Bethany Morris at Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.