NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE REFORM OF MARIJUANA LAWS LAUNCHES
CHAPTER IN ASHEVILLE

ASHEVILLE -- Twenty years from now, Jennifer Foster thinks that the
marijuana prohibition will be relegated to the history books.

And if this happens, some of the early steps toward decriminalization
in this state can be traced to the North Carolina National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) inaugural
meeting Sunday evening at The French Broad Brewing Co.

Norml is a national nonprofit organization supporting the removal of
all criminal penalties for the private possession and responsible use
of marijuana by adults.

The purpose of Sunday's meeting -- and a benefit concert that
followed at The Garage at Biltmore -- was to raise money for the
group's nonprofit status as well as to discuss creative reform
strategies and to educate about bills in committee in the N.C.
General Assembly that would allow marijuana use for medical purposes.

"(Lifting the ban on medical marijuana) is something that's really
urgent ... people will die," said Foster, organizer and an Asheville
attorney. "We really want for people to know that this is something
people support."

The goal is to have Norml branches throughout the state, said
organizer Alex Bumgardner, of Gastonia. The UNC Asheville graduate
said there is a presence in Charlotte and Asheville already, but the
group had its first meeting in Asheville "because the momentum is
already there." About 150 people have already expressed more interest
in the group, Foster said.

She said that in her 15 years as a criminal law attorney, she's heard
countless stories "about how criminal penalties of marijuana use and
possession wreck lives."

"There is no real rational basis for marijuana to be illegal when
alcohol is not," Foster, "it just doesn't make sense."

For Bumgardner, the impact of decriminalizing marijuana would be far
reaching, suggesting the state's textile industry could be revived by
the legal production of hemp, a nonpsychoactive cannabis strain. The
time and money spent to enforce the laws prohibiting marijuana could
also "be dedicated elsewhere," he said.