The student group Young Americans for Liberty raised some eyebrows on the University of Iowa campus today as it announced it was handing out “pot brownies” to raise awareness about reforming marijuana laws. Group spokesman, Michael Corrie, says the “pot” part of the brownies is a play on words. “They are just cosmic brownies in a big clay pot, so pot brownies,” Corrie explains.

Today is April 20th, or 420, which is a code for smoking or consuming marijuana. Corrie says the goal was to get noticed. “We thought it would grab people’s attention and it actually seems to be working out very well,” Corrie says. He says they overall goal is to bring attention to what he says is the country’s “failed war on drugs.”

“I believe all it is doing is really draining money from our economy, it’s locking up massive amounts of people who are non-violent drug offenders, who’re disproportionately African-American or Latino, even though ever race uses drugs on the same rate,” according to Corrie.

Corrie says the group advocates making marijuana legal for personal use in Iowa. Critics say legalizing marijuana wouldn’t solve everything and would create more problems of its own. “Well you know, I’m not saying it would be a problem free process — but compared to what we’re doing now — anything is better,” Corrie says.

Corrie, a student from Soiux City, says the state will likely have to first make medical marijuana legal before the state could move on to make recreation use legal. He says the group has roughly 20 members and the pot brownie promotion was also a chance to sign up more people.