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High in America
The True Story Behind NORML and the Politics of Marijuana
Patrick Anderson
High in America ©1981 by Patrick Anderson
Published by The Viking Press, New York ISBN 0-670-11990-3
High in America appears in The Psychedelic Library and
The DRCNet Library by permission of the author.
Introduction
One Saturday evening in November of 1972, my wife and I drove into Washington for dinner at a Georgetown restaurant. It was a celebration, of sorts. Since the early spring we had worked as volunteers for George McGovern in the rural Virginia county in which we live. We'd been delegates to the state Democratic convention; we'd knocked on doors and registered voters and worked the polls on election day. We'd done all the things Americans do when they believe passionately in a political cause.
On election night, of course, Richard Nixon wiped us out. Our anti-war candidate for president lost about as decisively as you can lose an election in America. That was why Ann and I were dining in an excellent French restaurant that Saturday night: We were celebrating the end of the campaign, the fact that at least the disaster was behind us, and for better or worse we could get on with our lives.
After dinner we dropped by the nearby home of Larry and Louise Dubois. Larry, a writer I had met that summer, was tall, dark, and excitable; Louise was petite, blond, and serene. On this Saturday night there were eight or ten people sitting around their living room talking and drinking wine and listening to a Grateful Dead album. One of the guests was an attractive, dark-haired woman in her twenties named Kelly Stroup (rhymes with "cop"), who was talking about her and her husband's adventures at the Democratic convention in Miami Beach that summer. I asked her what they'd been doing there.
"We lobby for marijuana-law reform," Kelly said.
"You what?"
"My husband is the head of NORML," she said, and went on to tell me about her husband, Keith Stroup, and about the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which he had founded two years before.
I was thirty-six years old, and didn't know much about marijuana—I'd tried it only twice—and I'd never heard of NORML. I did, however, know a little something about writing for magazines. In the previous six years, in addition to writing my first three books, I'd written articles for The New York Times Magazine on such political figures as Larry O'Brien, Henry Kissinger, Clark Clifford, Ralph Nader, and Bill Moyers, and if there was anything I was sure of, it was that the adventures of a pro-marijuana lobbyist in Washington would make good copy.
On Monday morning I called an editor at The New York Times Magazine and told him I had a natural for them. Shortly thereafter I joined Stroup on a trip to Texas, where, among other things, we visited the state prison and met young men who had been sentenced to as much as twenty-five years' confinement for smoking and/or selling marijuana.
My article on NORML appeared in the Times Magazine the next month, and though properly "objective," it was certainly favorable to the cause of marijuana-law reform. I was not part of the drug culture, but it seemed blindingly clear to me that people should not go to jail for smoking marijuana—not for a day, much less for the ten- and twenty-year sentences I'd encountered in Texas. A few months earlier, in March of 1972, Richard Nixon's own National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, after conducting the most exhaustive study of marijuana ever made in America, had concluded that it was virtually harmless and that people should not go to jail for smoking it. Nixon didn't agree with his commission, but I did, and still do.
I started dropping by NORML'S office from time to time, to see how Stroup's work was coming and, more generally, to enjoy the wonderful panorama of people who wandered in and out: reporters, political activists, drug dealers, groupies, law students, scientists, Yippies, rock musicians, and assorted other notables and crazies. A busy little world revolved around Stroup as he dashed about his ground-floor office, with the marijuana posters on its walls and the bust of George Washington on the mantel. Whether playing host, making introductions, fielding phone calls, yelling orders to his staff, rolling joints, dropping names, or denouncing his political adversaries, he was always on-stage, starring in his self-created role of outlaw lobbyist.
Stroup was thirty then, and certainly one of Washington's most colorful political figures. He was a turned-on Nader, a funny, fast-talking, charming, very bright lawyer-activist. Angry and hot-tempered at times, he was always competitive, always the politician, quick to turn every situation to his own advantage. But he was also candid and introspective with his friends, dedicated to his cause, and quick to laugh at himself and at the madness of it all. It was a dispiriting time in Washington, and one of Stroup's most attractive qualities was his enthusiasm. He was always up, always ready to fight the next battle, and if he was sometimes frustrated by NORML'S political setbacks, he was never discouraged and never dull. He saw himself as a professional manipulator, employed by the marijuana smokers of America to manipulate national drug policy to their advantage, and he believed it an honorable pursuit.
This will take a little thought on your part for the link to work....
where you see *** insert a 3 letter abbreviated drug named not allowed here copy & paste to your browser to continue reading:
https://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/***/highinamerica.htm
This is not about the mentioned 3 letter drug its about NORML
The True Story Behind NORML and the Politics of Marijuana
Patrick Anderson
High in America ©1981 by Patrick Anderson
Published by The Viking Press, New York ISBN 0-670-11990-3
High in America appears in The Psychedelic Library and
The DRCNet Library by permission of the author.
Introduction
One Saturday evening in November of 1972, my wife and I drove into Washington for dinner at a Georgetown restaurant. It was a celebration, of sorts. Since the early spring we had worked as volunteers for George McGovern in the rural Virginia county in which we live. We'd been delegates to the state Democratic convention; we'd knocked on doors and registered voters and worked the polls on election day. We'd done all the things Americans do when they believe passionately in a political cause.
On election night, of course, Richard Nixon wiped us out. Our anti-war candidate for president lost about as decisively as you can lose an election in America. That was why Ann and I were dining in an excellent French restaurant that Saturday night: We were celebrating the end of the campaign, the fact that at least the disaster was behind us, and for better or worse we could get on with our lives.
After dinner we dropped by the nearby home of Larry and Louise Dubois. Larry, a writer I had met that summer, was tall, dark, and excitable; Louise was petite, blond, and serene. On this Saturday night there were eight or ten people sitting around their living room talking and drinking wine and listening to a Grateful Dead album. One of the guests was an attractive, dark-haired woman in her twenties named Kelly Stroup (rhymes with "cop"), who was talking about her and her husband's adventures at the Democratic convention in Miami Beach that summer. I asked her what they'd been doing there.
"We lobby for marijuana-law reform," Kelly said.
"You what?"
"My husband is the head of NORML," she said, and went on to tell me about her husband, Keith Stroup, and about the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which he had founded two years before.
I was thirty-six years old, and didn't know much about marijuana—I'd tried it only twice—and I'd never heard of NORML. I did, however, know a little something about writing for magazines. In the previous six years, in addition to writing my first three books, I'd written articles for The New York Times Magazine on such political figures as Larry O'Brien, Henry Kissinger, Clark Clifford, Ralph Nader, and Bill Moyers, and if there was anything I was sure of, it was that the adventures of a pro-marijuana lobbyist in Washington would make good copy.
On Monday morning I called an editor at The New York Times Magazine and told him I had a natural for them. Shortly thereafter I joined Stroup on a trip to Texas, where, among other things, we visited the state prison and met young men who had been sentenced to as much as twenty-five years' confinement for smoking and/or selling marijuana.
My article on NORML appeared in the Times Magazine the next month, and though properly "objective," it was certainly favorable to the cause of marijuana-law reform. I was not part of the drug culture, but it seemed blindingly clear to me that people should not go to jail for smoking marijuana—not for a day, much less for the ten- and twenty-year sentences I'd encountered in Texas. A few months earlier, in March of 1972, Richard Nixon's own National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, after conducting the most exhaustive study of marijuana ever made in America, had concluded that it was virtually harmless and that people should not go to jail for smoking it. Nixon didn't agree with his commission, but I did, and still do.
I started dropping by NORML'S office from time to time, to see how Stroup's work was coming and, more generally, to enjoy the wonderful panorama of people who wandered in and out: reporters, political activists, drug dealers, groupies, law students, scientists, Yippies, rock musicians, and assorted other notables and crazies. A busy little world revolved around Stroup as he dashed about his ground-floor office, with the marijuana posters on its walls and the bust of George Washington on the mantel. Whether playing host, making introductions, fielding phone calls, yelling orders to his staff, rolling joints, dropping names, or denouncing his political adversaries, he was always on-stage, starring in his self-created role of outlaw lobbyist.
Stroup was thirty then, and certainly one of Washington's most colorful political figures. He was a turned-on Nader, a funny, fast-talking, charming, very bright lawyer-activist. Angry and hot-tempered at times, he was always competitive, always the politician, quick to turn every situation to his own advantage. But he was also candid and introspective with his friends, dedicated to his cause, and quick to laugh at himself and at the madness of it all. It was a dispiriting time in Washington, and one of Stroup's most attractive qualities was his enthusiasm. He was always up, always ready to fight the next battle, and if he was sometimes frustrated by NORML'S political setbacks, he was never discouraged and never dull. He saw himself as a professional manipulator, employed by the marijuana smokers of America to manipulate national drug policy to their advantage, and he believed it an honorable pursuit.
This will take a little thought on your part for the link to work....
where you see *** insert a 3 letter abbreviated drug named not allowed here copy & paste to your browser to continue reading:
https://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/***/highinamerica.htm
This is not about the mentioned 3 letter drug its about NORML
