6
Stroup says marijuana law reforms likely
By LINDA FINESTONE
Staff Writer
The prospects look promising for Kansas to pass legislation this year that would decriminalize marijuana use and enforcement for the Reform of Marijuana laws said yesterday.
" we're currently looking at Kansas, where it's a likely winner this year," Keith Stroup, director of NORMI, told about 10 people yesterday in the Kansas Union
Balloonth.
He who founded NORMI in 1970 as a public-interest group to lobby for the decriminalization of marjana, spoke at the University of Kansas as part of his three-day trip to Kansas. Strop was now today in Tupelo at a hospital in Kansas Senate. He also wrote *Affairs Com-* in support of a bill that would decriminalize marijuana use.
The bill would impose a fine of $100 or less for the first two offenses involving up to one ounce of marijuana, which would be unclassified misdemeanors.
THE HOUSE PASSED the bill but the Senate amended the bill to punish by fine one offense only and has sent it back to committee. ...
If the bill does pass the Senate committee with the one-offense provision, then the bill must go back to the House unless a joint committee can resolve the difference.
If the amended bill does not pass the committee, it will be killed.
Stroup said 2,000 marijuana arrests were made in Kansas last year. Nationwide, he said that nearly a quarter of arrests
STROUP, 34, who said he had smoked marijuana for 10 years, said the present laws for punishing marijuana use were an important cultural belief on marijuana smokers.
He said that although the government now was spending money to research the effects of marijuana, part of the public's attitude toward marijuana was caused by inaccurate reports of the drug's effects on health.
Stroupe cited a study done two years ago in which doctors at Northwestern University pumped marijuana smoke into 10 rhesus monkeys. Two of the monkeys died and the study reported that marijuana was physically harmful.
STROUP SAID that NORML investigated
-KANSAN—
On Campus
Events
TODAY: THE STUDENT COMMITTEE FOR HANDICAPPED CONCERNS meets at 2 p.m. in the Jayhawk Room of the KangasUnion.
TONIGHT: The ACCOUNTING CLUB meets at 6:30 in the Council Room of the Union. YOUNG ISRAEL has a discussion of women in Judaism at 7:30 in the International Room of the Union. JEAN MICHEL COUSTER of the SUA Forum Library, Men's Penetration of the at 8 in the Union Ballroom. THE MONTAGNANA TRI presents a recital as part of the Chamber Music Series at 8 in Swarthout Recall Hall in Murphy Hall.
TOMORROW: KUY-will sponsor a film, "VD Blues," to be shown continually from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m and from 7:30 p.m to 9:30 p.m. in the Forum Room of the University of Chicago, at 6:30 p.m in Danforth Chapel. Anyone interested in ballet, modern dance or jazz is welcome to come to TAU SIGMA at 7 p.m. in Robinson Gymnasium's dance studio. The SCIENCE FICTION CLUB will meet at 7 p.m. in Parlor A of the University of Chicago, at 9:30 p.m in Parlor C of the Union. The AEROHAWK FLYING CLUB will meet at 7:30 p.m. in the Pine Room of the Union. THE STUDENT HEALTH SERVICES ADVISORY BOARD will have an open forum at 7:30 p.m in the University of Chicago, at 9:30 p.m in BETH KEMPER, piano, will present a student recital at 8 p.m. in Swarthout Recital Hall.
the Northwestern study and found that the amount of smoke being forced into each monkey was equivalent to 220 marijuana shots. The NORM is higher than the monkeys had died from asphyxiation.
"If you've got chimpanzees, don't let them smoke," Stroup said.
Strop said that if the only question about marijuana was whether it was a health problem, then it should be treated as such. He said law enforcement officials should pay more attention to a suspect's health at the time he was arrested.
"When I was arrested I couldn't tell any difference between the way they treated me and the way they treated bank robbers," he said.
Although a Gallop Poll taken in March 1977 showed that 53 percent of those polled then supported legalization of marijuana, the country was not yet ready to take that step.
EVEN IF THERE was enough support to pass legislation to legalize marijuana, he said, the public would be not be happy with the system that would result.
"We'd pay higher prices for weak dope and pay high taxes," he said.
Stroup said he did not think that consumers were organized well enough to
However, he said he thought the country eventually could device a system that would meet the needs of users but that would not promote drug abuse.
prevent a takeover of retail marijuana sales by industry.
Stropu said that if the present decriminalization experiment was successful, then other kinds of drugs could be decriminalized within five years.
"There's a $5-billion-a-year market on retail martians," he said. "It still is a $5."
billion market whether you legalize it or not.
The difference is that they would tax it."
"It's a trend we're after and it's a direction," Stroup said.
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we'll be stronger, we'll be better organized and we'll win next year," he said. "But it would be a hell of a lot better for you people if we could do it now."
Malls
He said NORMI would continue to jobby for decriminalization legislation in Kansas
...it we don't win this year we'll be back.
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