The occasion was a weekend conference put on by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, more commonly known as NORML. For NORML and its allies, 1977 had been an amazing year. Mississippi, New York, and North Carolina all passed decriminalization laws. And the new man in the White House, President Jimmy Carter, was urging Congress to do the same thing on a national level.
Growing, smoking, and possessing marijuana was still illegal pretty much everywhere in the United States. But by 1977, more than half of Americans under 30 had tried pot. NORML’s liberal drug agenda was winning. And now it was time to revel in all that success.
The weekend’s most extravagant event was the NORML Christmas party, held in a town house near Dupont Circle. There was a rock band, strobe lights, and a juggler. Silver trays got passed from guest to guest, some loaded down with caviar and others with joints packed with hand-cultivated marijuana.
The night was a crucial showcase for one man: Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML.
In 1977 he was 33 years old, and he answered to the nickname Mr. Marijuana. At the Christmas party, he strolled around in a blue velvet dinner jacket and burgundy bow tie, chatting up friends, colleagues, and potential funders under a haze of marijuana smoke. “Part of the thrill of being there was it was so goddamn out in the open,” he said.
Not long after 10 p.m., a guest showed up who demanded his full attention: Peter Bourne. He was the president’s top adviser on drug policy, and a man who could potentially change everything for Stroup’s movement.
Stroup was surprised and thrilled to see Bourne at the front door. The United States drug czar had turned up for a weed extravaganza. And he hadn’t dropped by to narc on anyone or to shut the whole thing down.
When it came to marijuana, Stroup and Bourne were on the same team. They believed both that America’s drug laws were horribly screwed up and that they were the people to fix them.
But that was before the NORML Christmas party. That night did end up changing everything for pot in America, but not in the way anyone expected.
Last week, almost five decades later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to hasten the reclassification of marijuana as a Schedule 3 drug. That move would put weed in the same tier as Tylenol with codeine, loosening restrictions on research into the drug’s medical benefits. It will also be a step in the direction of full federal decriminalization or even legalization.
It all might have happened a long time ago if not for that Christmas party in 1977. The drug-fueled gathering turned out to be a turning point for Stroup and Bourne, for the Carter presidency, and for the future of marijuana.