HOLY SMOKES! POT FANS TAKE HIGH ROAD

Marijuana Backers Join Adopt-A-Highway Program to Clean Up 2-Mile Stretch
in Macomb

ROSEVILLE -- Michigan's Adopt-A-Highway program has a new partner: the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Signs went up last month on the median of Gratiot at 12 Mile and 14 Mile
roads announcing that the pro-pot organization's Macomb County chapter will
work for free to pick up litter on that two-mile stretch of road.

Donna Paridee, a New Baltimore homemaker and mother of three, said her
chapter's cleanup campaign is, in part, an effort to counter the stereotype
that NORML is made up solely of pot-smoking burnouts who live to get high.
"We are your neighbors. We have jobs and families like everyone else."

The Michigan Department of Transportation, which runs Adopt-A-Highway, does
not make judgments on what a participating group stands for, spokeswoman
Brenda Peek said. "We don't get involved in that. The main thing is that
they're working to help beautify Michigan."

Safety training is required to adopt a highway, but approval is largely
cursory.

Allen Johnson, president of the Crime Prevention Association of Michigan,
which opposes marijuana law reform, said he sees at least one benefit to
the anti-litter campaign on Gratiot. "We can be sure all the marijuana
butts will be cleaned up on that road," he said.

The signs on Gratiot give little clue to the group's identity. They read
"NORML of Macomb Co."

"When the city was making up the signs in January, a lady from the public
works department called and asked me, 'Who is this Norm L?' " Paridee recalled.