The SAFER Campuses Initiative is a project of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), a national non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the relative harms of the nation’s two most popular recreational drugs: alcohol and marijuana. In particular, the organization works to highlight the fact that marijuana is far safer than alcohol both to the consumer and to society, and that it makes no sense to steer people toward drinking instead of making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana.

SAFER was founded in 2005, following the high-profile alcohol overdose deaths of two Colorado college students: Sam Spady at Colorado State University (CSU), and Lynn "Gordie" Bailey at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU). Recognizing that these students would still be alive had they been using marijuana instead of alcohol, and that their universities drive students to drink with more severe penalties for marijuana use than for alcohol use, the organization set out to change these imbalanced policies and highlight the dangerous message they send.

That spring, SAFER worked with students at CSU and CU to introduce and successfully campaign for campus referendums that demonstrated the student bodies’ opinion that university penalties for marijuana should be no greater than university penalties for alcohol. Since then, students have adopted similar “SAFER referendums” on campuses nationwide, including major colleges and universities in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. The organization continues to work with students on these campus campaigns, as well as on their follow-up with school officials and student leaders to develop safer, more rational alcohol and marijuana policies.

SAFER also carries out educational efforts and action campaigns that address the harm. The organization's latest campaign follows on the heels of the Amethyst Initiative, a national effort endorsed by more than 130 college presidents and chancellors, calling on elected officials to "support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age" and whether lowering it to 18 could curb dangerous student drinking. Likewise, SAFER's Emerald Initiative calls on these 130+ college administrators to also"support an informed and dispassionate public debate" over the effects of laws and university policies that steer students toward drinking by threatening them with harsher punishments for using a far less harmful substance: marijuana.