Word: norml
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...most effective pro-marijuana group has been the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Founded in 1971 by an aggressive young lawyer, Keith Stroup, NORML--fueled by Stroup's vision of himself as the Ralph Nader of dope--became a legitimate lobby to be reckoned with and Stroup became a flamboyant power broker. High in America is journalist-novelist Patrick Anderson's account of NORML, the politics of pot and the rise and fall of Stroup, the man who got high for your sins...
...fast-talking, fast-moving, high energy performer, a magnetic figure, an actor who this evening, at this gaudy party, was glorying in his favorite role: Mr. Marijuana, the Man from NORML, the Prime Minister...
...party mentioned was the climax of NORML's annual conference held in December 1977. The atmosphere was such that $400-an-ounce marijuana was being passed around on silver trays at a party frequented by members of the Carter Administration and congressional staffs. At this party, Dr. Peter Bourne, Carter's adviser on health and drug issues, was seen doing cocaine. Six months later, angered by what he felt was a betrayal by Bourne on the paraquat issue (the U.S.-financed poisonous spraying of Mexican marijuana later shipped to America), Stroup leaked an account of the cocaine incident to Jack...
...last two years, NORML has been a crippled lobby. While Stroup has formed a law firm specializing in defending drug smugglers, NORML has been fighting a losing battle against the resurgence of the Reefer Madness mentality, the belief that marijuana makes you pick up an axe and kill your parents. We are hurtling backwards through a period about which we should be ashamed. Anderson concludes his narrative by observing...
However, Anderson does not follow up this way of looking at the issue on non-political grounds and quickly returns to describing the adventures of NORML, congressional committees and drug councils, and the various fights in the state legislatures. He rarely explores deeply the motivations of the pro- and anti-marijuana forces and rarely touches on the philosophical aspect of whether or not a society has the right to determine the legality of drugs...