CU Hopes To Snuff Out 4/20 Pot Event

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - The University of Colorado in Boulder hopes sealing off the campus will help it snuff out the popular pot smoking event called 4/20.

Last April 20 approximately 10,000 people attended the annual smoke fest. (See a photo gallery.)

This year, the university is making the campus off limits to everyone who is not a student or staff member.

University officials plan on taking fish fertilizer and spreading it out over the entire Norlin Quad. They say it could make the area virtually uninhabitable. It may seem like an extreme measure, but university officials say they will do whatever it takes to end the pot party.

"It's a traffic nightmare. It's sometimes 10,000 people here in the heart of the campus," Ryan Huff with the CU-Boulder Police Department said.

Signs will also be posted around campus that say visitors aren't welcome. Trespassers could face a $750 ticket and six months in jail.

"It will be pretty strict. You'll need in ID card to be on this campus that day," Huff said.

Every year CU has tried to stop the party. They've used fences, turned on sprinklers, and even encouraged snitching. Still nothing worked.

Some students welcome the new rule.

"It might be a little too heavy-handed but I don't know what else they would do," student Brandon Guite said.

The event has turned into a black eye for the school and the reputation of their students. Most of the smokers aren't even enrolled in the school.

"I feel like it's just going to move off campus ... there are lots of parks around," student Melissa Collins said.

If their plans are effective, university officials say they will continue their preventative measures every year.

Last year police issued 33 tickets at the event in Boulder.

See footage from last year's gathering in a YouTube posting from Ryan Van Duzer, a contributor to the Daily Camera in Boulder: