Interview with CU Boulder Police spokesperson Ryan Huff

To gain some insight into the preparations for 4/20/2013, we decided to interview Ryan Huff. He is the spokesperson for the University of Colorado at Boulder police department. We interviewed him to see what steps the school is taking this year in attempt to prevent the 4/20 celebration from taking place, as well as his experience from previous years.

Huff believes that in ways it was more difficult to deal with the 4/20 event on the CU Boulder campus in previous years than it is now. He notes that it was difficult to deal with the event when it was allowed to take place because of the safety risk associated with a massive gathering on campus. Huff also believes that preventing the celebration from taking place in 2012 was a success.

"Last year, fortunately we had no confrontations, we had no complaints about any police activities," says Huff. "There were three arrests and 12 tickets, but compared to previous years that's not drastically that different."

All three of the people arrested during last year's event were CU Boulder students. These students were arrested for going on to the Norlin Quad, despite warnings from police. Of the twelve tickets issues during 4/20 last year, 11 of them were for trespassing and one for possession of marijuana.

Huff believed the handling of the 2012 situation was successful because there were no major problems associated with the event. There were a lot of unknowns when dealing with last year's event that made it a little complicated to deal with for the police.

We have also learned that CU Boulder does not plan on using fish fertilizer to keep people away from the Norlin Quad this year. Other than that, this year's plan will very similar to last year's. One major change is that there will not be a concert provided by the school's student government this year. There is a concert taking place on campus the day before 4/20/2013. However,  this is a coincidence according to Huff. The concert this year was not planned as an alternative to 4/20 festivities like the one that took place last year.

Huff went on to mention that many of the people participating in the 4/20 celebration were not CU Boulder students in past years.

"For whatever reason this has just grown over the years into an event, an unsanctioned event that there's really no leader of," says Huff. "It has attracted a lot of people who do not have any affiliation with CU."

Last year the number of participants not affiliated with CU was dramatically lower, even though a few managed to find a way on campus. Overall, Huff was very pleased with the results of last year's events.

"We were fortunate that last year, the vast majority of the public cooperated, and even with those who didn't it was very peaceful," says Huff.