Part of Stroup's problem was competition. In the '90s, two new groups arose to advocate drug-law reform, each bankrolled by an eccentric billionaire. The Drug Policy Alliance is funded by financier George Soros. The Marijuana Policy Project, founded by former NORML staffer Rob Kampia, is funded by insurance mogul Peter Lewis. Both groups have spent millions on state referendums to legalize medical marijuana -- many successful, some not.
But Stroup has failed to find an eccentric billionaire sugar daddy for NORML.
Stroup in the K Street offices of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He retired yesterday as head of the organization he founded 34 years ago.
(Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
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"I wish we had that kind of funding," he says. "If I had the kind of funding that Kampia has, I think I could have done a lot more with it than he has."
Now NORML limps by on about $750,000 a year, most of it raised from dues paid by about 12,000 members. It's not enough money to do much politicking, so NORML is now largely a service organization for pot smokers, providing tips on beating drug tests and legal advice for arrested smokers.
Over the past year money was so tight that Stroup laid off two staffers and stopped collecting his $75,000-a-year salary for two months.
"I view NORML as a small and shrinking dinosaur," Kampia says. "NORML's time has come and gone."
Tom Riley, official spokesman for federal drug czar John Walters, agrees. "Keith and people like that have banged their heads against the wall for years saying 'Legalize pot.' But they're farther behind now than they were 20 years ago."
Riley says Stroup's career reminds him of a line from the movie "The Big Lebowski": "The '60s are over, Lebowski. The bums lost. My condolences."
Keep on Tokin'
"I have no doubt I'll be smoking marijuana the day I die," Stroup says.
He loves the weed. He smokes it nearly every night. He comes home from work, pours a glass of chardonnay, lights up a joint and turns on the TV news.
He does not smoke pot when he has to work or drive, he says, because, as the movies of stoner comedians Cheech and Chong prove, pot can make you stupid.
"I learned a long time ago that some of those Cheech and Chong jokes are very real," he says. "If you're in a social setting and you're smoking marijuana, there are going to be a lot of those Cheech and Chong situations, where you feel real strongly about something and you start a conversation and about halfway through you forget what the point was." He laughs. "But that's only when you're stoned. Four hours later, you don't have that."
His new wife doesn't share his passion for pot. Neither does his 35-year-old daughter, who recently had a baby boy, making Stroup a grandfather. He doesn't care that they don't smoke pot and he doesn't think anybody should care that he does smoke it. Forty years of serious inhaling, he claims, hasn't harmed his body or his mind.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with it," he says, "and it should be of no interest or concern to the government."
Despite his candor on the topic, Stroup hasn't been busted since his Canadian misadventures. But he knows the government and its drug war are always out there, and that can make a guy paranoid. About a year ago, the feds nearly discovered Stroup's stash in a suitcase he'd checked on a plane.
"I had a few joints in an airtight thing inside a sock so you couldn't see it," he says. "I got back home and opened it up and there was this slip saying, 'We opened your bag, blah, blah blah.' And my weed is a few inches away! I said, 'Man, that was too close!' So I no longer carry anything when I'm flying. If I'm going to be someplace for a few days, I ship myself a 'care package.' "
The next day Stroup calls, leaves a message on the voice mail. "Man, I was totally goofy yesterday on that cold medicine," he says. "I hope I wasn't totally goofy in my responses. . . . I should have better sense than to do an interview when I'm stoned out of my mind on cold medicine."
