50 YEARS KEITH STROUP BY JORDAN PERSON In the cannabis community, Keith Stroup is a legend. He is the founder of the longest standing consumer advocacy group in the nation, NORML - the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. In 2020, NORML celebrates 50 years as an organization. Stroup’s long hair is reminiscent of his past, present, and future. Now, at age 75, he has fought for the freedom of cannabis longer than many staking claims in this industry have been alive. GRAM sat down with Stroup to hear how it all started, the struggles of legalization, his personal journey with the plant, and where he thinks cannabis laws are headed in the future. In his third year of law school at Georgetown University, Stroup was offered a job serving on the National Commission for Product Safety. Two years went by and Stroup worked alongside Ralph Nader. He recalls, “It was at this time, I really began to learn about public interest law. In the process of working at the commission, I became enamored of the concept of using your law degree to make an impact on public policy.” Two people greatly shaped and influenced Keith Stroup in 1970. First Ralph Nader, “He didn’t smoke marijuana, all the young aids that worked for him, known as ‘Nader’s Raiders’ all consumed like I did. Ralph was a straight guy, but I was influenced by him using his law degree to directly affect public policy. Secondly, I read a book about that time by Ramsey Clark called “Crime in America.” He had recently retired as the US Attorney General, and I
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greatly admired him. He was here in Washington and he proposed legalizing marijuana and in time he became an antiwar activist. I admired Ramsey enormously from a distance,” Stroup explains. Stroup’s personal opinion of politics had become somewhat radicalized due to the antiwar movement during the Vietnam war. He tells us, “I don’t think I would have ever had any interest in starting a public interest group to support marijuana, but the antiwar movement showed me that marijuana was seen as a symbol of resistance—it was a way to say, not only do we not like your war in Vietnam, there are a lot of other things in current policy that we don’t agree with.” By now Stroup was 27 and past the drafting age. He knew he wanted to do something in public interest law. He began to wonder if he wanted to use his law degree to develop a program to legalize marijuana. He sat down with a few friends and
IN LATE 1970, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE REFORM OF MARIJUANA LAWS WAS FORMED.
