Group puffs against pot laws

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The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws was only hours into its convention Friday when the group's executive director made an announcement to the 80 or so people awaiting a seminar.

"Let me remind you that this is Washington, D.C., and not San Francisco," Keith Stroup said. "There are some people out front taking their medicine and the hotel is threatening to call the police ... there are rules and while we don't have to like them, we have to play by them at this time."

It was a nutshell message that addressed the three-decade battle that NORML has waged on behalf of marijuana smokers nationwide by lobbying Congress, defending arrested users and advocating changes in national laws regarding marijuana use.

The "medicine" he referred to was marijuana, recognized in 10 states -- but not in the District -- as a legitimate drug to combat anything from chemotherapy side effects to glaucoma.

Outside the Almas Shrine Center on K Street, the midtown hall where the two-day 32nd annual convention was held, Darrell Paulsen sat in his wheelchair on the sidewalk and pulled on a joint. The smoke streamed into the air and into the noses of the buttoned-down crowd of executives and politicos walking by during lunch hour.

"If I was able to walk and I was smoking, someone might do something," said Mr. Paulsen, 33, of Minnesota, who suffers from cerebral palsy. "But they see me in a wheelchair and figure, 'Oh, that's the worst thing he can do?' "

The conference, which ended yesterday, drew nearly 300 people who listened to how-to panels about local lobbying and keeping away from the law, as well as discussions on medicinal marijuana and strategy for the future.

Most of those in attendance cited NORML as a primary influence in their stance against marijuana laws.

"NORML is the group I have known since I was a kid," said Mark Stepnoski, the former Dallas Cowboy football player, who while on the team in 1998 came out as a marijuana advocate and became a high-profile spokesman for the group.

Government studies have estimated that about 70 million Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, a figure that has motivated pro-marijuana groups and bolstered drug-fighting agencies' budgets.

Author Eric Schlosser, who wrote last year's best-selling book "Reefer Madness," yesterday told a luncheon audience that while President Clinton's secretary of health and human services, Donna Shalala, once said that marijuana was a "one-way ticket to dead-end hopes and dreams," his view was that "conservatives have been more willing to speak out against the government's war on marijuana."

Mr. Stroup, the founder of NORML, announced Friday that he will step down from his directorship by the end of the year. He later said his two stints -- one from 1970 to 1979 and one from 1995 to the present -- had positive results.

"It's been a series of victories," said Mr. Stroup, 60. "We decriminalized marijuana in 11 states, with Oregon the first and Alaska the last."

And perhaps the most significant indicator of success, he said, was the 2002 Zogby poll that found about 75 percent of Americans rank marijuana as less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

"It showed real progress," he said. "It was the highest acceptance we've ever seen. And we've said for 35 years, 'Don't treat us like criminals.' "