Group Says Marijuana Laws Failing

Darlene Superville / Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) Efforts to control marijuana are failing despite
billions of dollars in government spending, a group that supports
legalization says in a new report.

"What most Americans are concerned about is violent crime," Keith Stroup,
executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws, said Friday. "They're not worried about whether some adult is sitting
down the street smoking a joint in their home."

In a report to be released Saturday the 60th anniversary of a federal
law outlawing marijuana the organization said nearly 600,000 people were
arrested on marijuana charges in 1995, most of them for possession.

The group also is known as NORML.

Stroup said the figures show antimarijuana efforts are failing despite a
federal budget of nearly $16 billion and additional spending by state and
local governments in the war against drugs.

More than 65 million people have smoked marijuana in their lifetimes,
including nearly 20 million people in the past year, he said.

Stroup described marijuana as the third most popular recreational drug
behind alcohol and tobacco neither of which is banned.

Federal officials disagreed with the report's assertions.

"This is a dangerous message that is replete with omissions of the reality
of what marijuana and other drugs do to you," said Bob Weiner, spokesman
for the National Office of Drug Control Policy.

Weiner said he hadn't read the report, but added that NORML makes the same
argument year after year while ignoring pertinent information about the
harmful effects of using marijuana and other controlled substances.

"I would be very leery of taking seriously a report by an organization
whose sole agenda and bias is to legalize drugs," Weiner said.

But Stroup contended that punishment for marijuana crimes including life
in prison without parole in some instances is often more severe than the
sentences handed down to convicted murderers and rapists.

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