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(The Daily Beast) By Tony Dokoupil - Marijuana’s moment finally seems to be here. At Hempfest in Seattle last month more than 100,000 fans rallied for the one-time evil weed. The governor of New York State and the mayor of Chicago recently supported the repeal of criminal penalties against a personal stash. And next month, if current polls hold, voters in Colorado and Washington will approve historic measures that make the pot nearly as legal as heirloom tomatoes. “This is clearly the tipping point,” says Keith Stroup, the grand old soul of the legalization movement. “We are in the process of ending marijuana prohibition in America,” he tells me.
But hold on a minute. The last time the movement was this cocky it was dead within six months, murdered by some of its own best friends. These included Jimmy Carter’s reform-minded drug czar, staffers at High Times magazine, and, yes, Keith Stroup himself, who did more than most to bring pot smokers into the mainstream—and more than most to send them back to the wings.
To find out if it could all go sideways again, I asked Stroup to do something he’s never done before: revisit the scene of the wildest, saddest chapter in the long fight for more liberal drug laws. That meant trying to find the house where the forces of change last came together—almost exactly 35 years ago—only to vanish up someone’s nose. To his immense credit, Keith Stroup was game.
“I want to say it’s the next block,” he says, striding down S Street in Washington, D.C. At 68 years old, and an almost daily marijuana user for decades, Stroup and his trademark energy has yet to flag. Block after block, we’re still walking, until finally he stops in front of a four-story cream-colored townhouse. “That would be the one,” he says, running a hand through his collar-length gray hair, although it’s clear he isn’t totally sure. “It’s awfully big.”
It had to be big. In the late 1970s, the movement itself was big, growing from a disorganized band of freaks into an upright national coalition for smokers’ rights—with Stroup as Pied Piper. Raised by God-fearing squirrel-hunting conservatives in southern Illinois in the 1950s, he jumped from the University of Illinois to Georgetown Law School to Ralph Nader’s Product Safety Commission, discovering pot and politics in the process. In 1970 he launched the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML—perhaps the world’s first lobby for the openly criminal.
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Also see:
Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana - CNBC.com - Contrary to the beliefs of those who advocate the legalization of marijuana, the current balanced, restrictive, and bipartisan drug policies of the United States are working reasonably well and they have contributed to reductions in the rate of marijuana use in our nation.
How Marijuana Works - Howstuffworks.com - Although banned by the U.S. federal government in 1937, it is estimated that 14.8 million Americans use marijuana, which is roughly the population of Calcutta, India. The United States drug market is one of the world's most commercially viable and attracts drug traffickers from every corner of the globe. On American soil, marijuana costs between $400 and $2000 per pound. A pound of higher quality marijuana, known as sinsemilla, costs between $900 and $6,000.
Signs of Marijuana Addiction: Do I Have A Problems? - Lifeworkscommunity.com - Understanding the signs and symptoms of cannabis addiction is the first step towards finding appropriate treatment and getting your life back. This is, in itself, an important milestone, and we understand how difficult it can be.
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