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It's NORML bashing season. From celebrities to activists, NORML can't catch a break. Plus, there's their rivalries with other drug-reform organizations such as the MPP and DPA. Is NORML being unfairly singled out for the failure to end marijuana prohibition?
 Let me start off by saying I'm a big supporter of NORML. While I worked at High Times, I produced the Hempilation album series that benefitted NORML to the tune of $150,000. NORML reciprocated by giving me their Media & Culture Award in 2004. I have nothing but respect for current executive director Allen St. Pierre, founder and chief counsel Keith Stroup, and everyone else associated with this hard-working non-profit that has been trying to change the marijuana laws since 1970.
Recently, NORML has had to fend off a deluge of criticisms. Here are a few:
• Bill Maher (NORML Advisory Board): "I'm a little disillusioned with NORML. I’ve always said, one of the reasons there’s been so little progress on the marijuana front is that what the movement needs more than anything is some kick-ass, take-no-prisoners, Karl Rove-type lobbyist, you know? And that just never happens, because it’s all a bunch of stoners."
• Woody Harrelson (NORML Advisory Board): "I’ve been the poster boy for the marijuana legalization movement and it’s not fair to those people that actually do it. I’ve never been involved in that struggle."
• Bruce Cain, who publishes New Age Citizen and now promotes MERP, his self-cultivation legalization model, has relentlessly attacked NORML for not supporting the proposal. He has stated that both St. Pierre and Stroup believe marijuana is harmful. This has elicited a steady flow of scathing rebukes from St. Pierre.
• Miriam White, a former NORML employee, claims NORML has not played fair with the Yippies over the years, dredging up decades-old animosity between Stroup and the '60s pranksters, who started the rally movement with smoke-ins in New York and Washington, DC just as Stroup founded the more buttoned-down NORML.
• Cheech & Chong chooses to co-sponsor their upcoming Get It Legal with the MPP, despite the fact that Tommy Chong is on NORML's Advisory Board. When asked why, Chong comments: "NORML consists mainly of lawyers who like to get high."
• The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) decides to partner with the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) rather than NORML for their recent conference, setting off an explosive email response from St. Pierre.
I understand that the MPP is the new kid on the block, even though they are set to celebrate their 15th anniversary in January. They're certainly better funded than NORML and have made courting celebrities a major part of their campaign to build support. To some extent, the MPP has been successful in doing this at NORML's expense.
I think there's plenty of room for multiple organizations - NORML, MPP, DPA, SSDP, ASA, LEAP - to fight this fight. So why is NORML suddenly taking a back seat and receiving cheap shot after cheap shot? Some blame NORML for the ongoing struggle to legalize pot. The naysayers contend this should have happened in the '70s when the country was ripe for change and had support from a president (Jimmy Carter). When Carter backed away from decriminalization, NORML was seen as the culprit because Stroup outed White House drug czar Peter Bourne's cocaine use. If Stroup hadn't admitted to Jack Anderson that he saw Bourne snort a line or two at a party you think marijuana would be legal today? Highly doubtful.
The MPP came along during the marijuana boom of the '90s. So did CAN, ASA, Cannabis Culture, Heads, Skunk and many other competitors to NORML's (and High Times') hegemony. An outgrowth of NORML - MPP founders Rob Kampia and Chuck Thomas both worked at NORML before splintering off to form their own group - the MPP takes a "straighter" approach to the legalization issue. "We don't support the use of marijuana," Kampia once told me. "We support the right to use marijuana."
This semantical difference is reflected in the organizations' different styles: While NORML sponsors large rallies like Seattle Hempfest and Boston Freedom Rally, the MPP is content to do its work behind closed doors, lobbying legislators to initiate bills. NORML is also known for its legal eagles - get busted and who do you call? NORML, not the MPP.
But to suggest NORML has passed its expiration date because marijuana is still illegal is like saying Greenpeace should close up shop because they've yet to end global warming.
It's time for all of the marijuana activists and supporters to stop bickering and focus on the big picture. Together, in all our shapes and sizes, colors and religions, political beliefs and ideologies, we'll eventually achieve the ultimate goal. Then we'll have a big celebration and everyone will shake hands about a job well done. Until then, can't we just get along?
Steve Bloom is the publisher of CelebStoner and co-author of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language & Life
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Having said that, there's probably been more progress having Norml in the world than there would have been without it.
I just wanted to make a couple of points:
(1) Despite my criticisms of NORML, DPA and MPP I don't want people to think this is some sort of personal vendetta. It is just that I am getting tired of watching news casts each night of innocent Mexican's getting slaughtered and I know, in my heart, that if MERP were implemented this would end immediately.
(2) I think the "hippies" were absolutely correct in that they just believe they should be able to "grow their own." How and why NORML (MPP and DPA as well) strayed from this path is extremely well documented in the following article within my article: Is NORML Really For The Personal Cultivation of Marijuana, Pt. 1: 1970-1986
(3) My minimumly exceptable "end stage" is where adults (over 18) can self cultivate "unlimited, untaxed and unregulated." As Robert Clark asserts in "Marijuana Botany" such a model will insure the preservation of the thousands of Cannabis genotypes. If, on the other hand, we allow corporate, government control of our plant we are likely to see the same "mono-culture" and destruction of much of the Marijuana genotype.
(4) My last point requires a revocation of the ownership rights (e.g., patents) on life forms that began in the mid-90's. This eclipses the Marijuana issue and is most certainly the most important issue of our time. In the pagan version of Genesis we were encouraged to eat from the tree of knowledge. But we were advised to leave the tree of life alone.
No truer words spoken.
Yours in Peace and Freedom,
Bruce W. Cain
At NORML we do pick and choose which events and organizations we work with in order to try to maintain a standard of professionalism consistent with our nearly 40-year history of working to legalize marijuana. We have survey data showing that 87% of the marijuana smokers in America have a favorable impression of the organization and our work, and so long as that support remains, we will continue with our current approach. No other legalization group can show support anywhere near that level, so we must be doing something right, even if it disappoints the Yippies.
The Yippies have every right to continue to hold their events, regardless of what NORML may think of them. And NORML has every right to support those events we like, and believe are effective at building political support, and to ignore those we do not. Historically we do not work with the Yippies because we believe they present a radical image that is counterproductive politically, and because their organizing skills are inadequate; their events draw embarrassingly small crows and no mainstream press coverage (which, under the circumstances, may be good).
But we do work with the Seattle Hempfest and the Boston Freedom Rally because we embrace both their mainstream political message and their style, and because they attract large crowds.
That being said, I wanted to introduce myself to the "class" and offer my help in any way possible for all of us to work together in peace and harmony to accomplish our mutual goals.
We are a new chapter that I hope to bring my 30 years of experience of working with celebrities and media for a greater awareness campaign. Why don't we all work together producing the most successful event in the history of the movement?
Respectfully,
Cheryl Shuman
Executive Director
Beverly Hills NORML
http://www.NORML90210.org
We must keep our eye on the prize, though: legalization. To achieve this, we must stick together. This we must do, no matter whether we tokers fit the stoner profile or not. Most of us don't fit that profile, but we need to make it clear to the opposition that all sorts of people use cannabis. Just like most things in life, it's just not that simple. There are many more of us who use cannabis who are productive members of society than there are stereotypical stoner losers. If the stoner image is based on some reality, it is only due to a tiny minority who failed to go undercover. Similarly, most gay people stayed in the "closet" for the longest time. Only a few, brave (or, to some, reckless) people were open about their failure to conform to "normal" sexuality before the Stonewall riots in 1969.
We had a breakthrough in the 1960s, but we weren't able to end prohibition completely before Nixon and Reagan tried to stuff the genie back into the bottle. We've simmered underground ever since. Last year we voted for change. Now is the time to stand up. For the millions of us to make our own Stonewall!
To come out of the closet. Time to open the door....
I think part of the reason NORML suffers the slings and arrows is strong branding over four decades. 25% of the general public, when asked "what's NORML?" can identify it as a public policy organization dedicated to legalizing pot. That's one in four squares that know what NORML is, not the tie-dyed choir. Outside of the movement, I doubt one in twenty can tell you what MPP, ASA, CAN, SSDP, or DPA are, and LEAP to them is a verb.
I look at NORML as not just marijuana policy, but marijuana people. Your note of the semantic difference is very accurate: MPP is anti-prohibition; NORML is pro-marijuana.
The bickering and in-fighting between orgs is unfortunate, sometimes a difference in policy, sometimes a difference in personality, but ultimately unavoidable to a large degree. Marijuana is a big issue with many angles, so there will naturally be many different orgs taking up each angle of the fight.
I liken it to the armed forces. There's the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, and Coast Guard. There are strong rivalries between the branches - Regular Army teases National Guardsmen, Marines bicker with sailors - but each would die for the other against their common enemy. Each branch has a specialty it brings to defense and warfare. Each branch is vital to the mission. The only differences would be that the armed forces have one Commander-in-Chief and their volunteers have shorter hair.
But I wouldn't change this arrangement even if I could. There needs to be a button-down policy-wonk org like MPP to roam Congress and statehouses. There needs to be former cops and prosecutors reaching out to scared communities like LEAP does. SAFER and SSDP are needed to focus on young people's concerns about pot. DPA is needed to look at the bigger picture of all drugs, not just marijuana. ASA is needed to focus on the medical needs of patients only.
And NORML exists to report marijuana news, provide marijuana education, analyze marijuana science, defend marijuana users, celebrate marijuana culture, and promote marijuana legalization. We're the social outlet and organizing hub for local grassroots activists.
There's plenty of room at the table for all of us, and plenty of orgs to match any activists' goals. I don't care what acronym you march behind, as long as you're marching in the same direction I am... toward freedom!