For the past fifteen years or so, pro-marijuana students attending the University of Missouri-Columbia have printed t-shirts and banners emblazoned with versions of this design, featuring a stylized "tiger claw" made of pot leaves and Mizzou's official "MU" logo. But no longer. After the university demanded that student activists pushing for reform of the nation's drug laws stop using a pot leaf in their logo, a national group has threatened a lawsuit on their behalf, citing First Amendment grounds.
The battle is being waged by the campus chapter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), along with the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
"We have a very polarizing topic," concedes the outgoing president of Mizzou's NORML chapter, Benton Berigan.…