BEYOND NORML

It's a weird sort of success story - how a Cleveland Heights teen's first
puff of a joint at age 17 failed to get him high, and yet 32 years later
he's "Mr. Marijuana" in Northeast Ohio. Persistence pays off? John Hartman
certainly hopes so, as it applies to his more than decade-long campaign for
legalization and regulation of the nation's third most popular recreational
drug of choice (behind tobacco and alcohol), smoked by an estimated 70
million Americans at some point in their lives.

Until February, Hartman was president of the Northeast Ohio chapter of the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Hartman
says he and NORML parted ways over his means of funding the cause through
for-profit shops offering a variety of cannabis-themed products including
clothing, posters, jewelry and smoking accessories (such as pipes marked
"for tobacco use"). NORML Director Keith Stroup describes the parting as
amicable, saying the organization is "just more comfortable being totally
nonprofit and staying out of the market altogether. "John is still a good
friend of ours, and just as much an ally." Hartman plans to continue
operating his Cannabis Connections shop in Lakewood, and a similar shop in
Warren, while forming a new nonprofit group, the Ohio Cannabis Society,
dedicated to reforming state marijuana drug laws. The new direction is the
latest of many in a life that few, including the 49-year-old Hartman, ever
envisioned. After all, this is a guy who grew up wanting to be a soldier,
just like his father who fought in World War II. A guy who spent a large
part of his working career as a blue-collar steel-mill employee.

An amateur astronomer, musician and gardener. The Sixties - rolled in a
wrapping of counterculture and cannabis - intervened. When NORML was
founded in 1970, Hartman did his part by slapping the group's "Liberate
Marijuana" sticker on his car. As marijuana penalties eased in states
around the nation, he figured legalization was just around the corner. Then
came the Reagan years, with a get-tough-on-drugs attitude that included the
specter of mandatory workplace drug-testing, and one particular evening
news report in 1989 that would change Hartman's life. His wife, Molly,
recalls, "We were having dinner, watching TV, when William Bennett, the
drug czar, came on and said, We're going after the casual marijuana user.
That's what this drug war is all about.' "I remember John jumping up from
the table, almost in a rage, saying, That's it! I've had it! I'm getting
involved, and we're going to change these laws.'" Her husband also
remembers that turning point. "I'd worked since I was 11; doing for myself,
paying the bills.

For them [the government] to say they were going to start drug-testing
people and threaten my livelihood, it was just the kick in the butt I
needed to get involved. "At that point, it was either get active or grab a
gun, and I knew [armed] revolutions don't work." To Hartman, the issue
primarily involves individual rights. "If one is to assume that we live in
a free society that already allows consumption of such things as alcohol
and tobacco - proven to be direct health threats - then to prohibit a
substance less harmful than alcohol or tobacco just doesn't make sense," he
says. "If you examine the effects of marijuana on society, you won't find
anything that says the federal or state government has a vested interest in
violating the privacy of responsible users of marijuana," he adds. "The
courts have always based their right to outlaw marijuana on a compelling
state interest.' I say they're not examining the science, they're relying
on reefer madness to make the assumption that a compelling state interest
exists." Hartman founded the Northeast Ohio NORML chapter in 1993,
organizing informational rallies, marches, concerts and other activities
advocating the regulated legalization and medicinal use of marijuana.
Today, Hartman still visually fits the role, with long hair, beard, beaded
necklace and an attitude that could be appropriately described as mellow.
Mellow gets the job done, according to Hartman. "I've never been what I
would consider a radical," he says. "I live a pretty conservative
lifestyle." No pot parties, no public dope-smoking displays and especially
no dealing - activities that could lead to his arrest. Granted, Hartman has
a personal stake in the legalization campaign. He smokes marijuana, and
uses it to ease the discomfort of dialysis treatment for a hereditary
kidney disease. But there's also something he describes as "an underlying
drive to try to right a wrong.

Somewhere in my life, my mother and father instilled in me that I've got to
undo the wrongs and make them right.

That's what really drives me." Gordon Friedman, a Cleveland criminal
defense attorney and adjunct professor at Cleveland State University's
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, has worked with Hartman for many years
on cases involving arrests for marijuana. "He really believes in what he's
doing," Friedman says. "There's no pretext or any phoniness about him. "The
issue for him, in large part, is one of freedom of choice," he adds. "John,
deep down, is kind of a Jeffersonian conservative who sees marijuana laws
as being intrusive, in terms of an individual's private life - that what
people do behind closed doors is their business." Hartman discovered early
on that closed doors are no shield when it comes to marijuana. While in
high school, police raided his house, seeking pot plants. Hartman had been
cultivating an indoor marijuana garden without success. "My brother kept
sabotaging my science experiment' by poking the stalks with a straight
pin," he recalls. "I'd doctor them up, but the damn things kept falling
over. This happened four or five times, and then his cat decided to use the
whole thing as a litter box." So the police found no plants, but Hartman
says, "I've always thought of that as a learning experience in terms of
keeping your private life private. Apparently some friends' had snitched on
me, so I learned right away that people will do bad things in the drug
world." Today, Hartman walks a fine line - essentially advocating for those
who use marijuana, without promoting it to those who don't. Not everyone
agrees with his efforts, including the Reverend Richard McCain, executive
director of the Substance Abuse Initiative of Greater Cleveland, a group
formed in 1989 to combat drug abuse among youth. Though McCain defends
Hartman's right to speak for the legalization of marijuana, that's about
all the slack this pastor of the Southeast Church of Christ is willing to
cut anyone on the issue. "It's important for people to understand that it's
not an easy answer just to say OK, let's legalize it and put some
regulations around it and go from there,'" McCain says. "What we're saying
to teens is that, Well, it's not that bad, it's legal' - which is already
the attitude in many ways concerning alcohol and tobacco." Plus, "we look
at marijuana as both a gateway as well as a dead-end drug," McCain says.
"Teens usually start their introduction to drugs with alcohol, tobacco or
marijuana, and that often leads to a progression of other drugs." Hartman
says his father also has been less than enthusiastic about the marijuana
campaign. "I'm sure he's not happy about it," he says. "But I think he's
come to accept it, that I'm not a bad person." Hartman says his mother came
to accept his views on marijuana before she died in 1987, only advising,
"Don't get in any trouble I can't get you out of." His sister, Anna Estep,
of Norwalk, recalls, "Mom thought he'd grow out of it. She thought it was
just a temporary thing." But the 48-year-old Estep isn't surprised at the
dedication of her brother (known among family members by his middle name,
Michael). "Mike always stood up for what he believed, and if he believed in
something, he was really gung-ho for it," she says. His younger brother,
46-year-old Walker Hartman, of Sullivan, also says John Hartman's activist
roots may extend back to the old school days when "he'd always help out people.

If one of the kids was overweight or not the most perfect kid, Mike would
be right there for him." He adds that times may have changed for many folks
raised in the free-spirited social activism of the Sixties and Seventies,
but not his brother. "Some of us changed, and gave up the party scene and
raised families," he says. "But Mike has seen a lot of people get hurt by
what he feels are unjust laws, and he's kind of fighting for them." John
Hartman says he did catch flak from some relatives, though, when his late
grandmother - a no-nonsense, farm-raised woman who liked to smoke, drink
(her nickname was "Six-Pack Annie") and play cards - once asked to sample
some marijuana-laced banana bread Hartman had baked, then promptly took a
nap. Hartman recalls she said it was the most restful sleep she'd had in 20
years. In attempts to reach a broader audience, Hartman unsuccessfully ran
for Lakewood City Council last year, and the Ohio District 17 House seat in
2000. Hartman, who describes himself as a "liberal Libertarian," shrugged
off the setbacks. "I got to participate in the debates, and one of the most
important things was, win or lose, getting our views out there," he says.
But the campaigning and activism stops at the doorstep of the 83-year-old
Lakewood house he shares with his wife of 25 years, Molly, 48. She was his
high school sweetheart, and says, "He's basically the same gentle,
kind-hearted, always-looking-out-for-the-underdog, compassionate man I fell
in love with." She notes that it did take some patience and understanding
during the early years of activism, when her husband ran his office out of
their home, taking over the dining room and a bedroom.

But nowadays, the house is a no-marijuana refuge, a place just to enjoy
life, in a deliberate separation of interests, John Hartman says. There, he
can gaze at Jupiter through his 10-inch telescope; strum along to his
favorite Bob Dylan and George Harrison songs while remembering bygone days
as a roadie for assorted high school rock bands; raise a few herbs (no, not
that one); and plant crocuses to form a front-yard peace symbol. Molly
Hartman, who recently lost her job in the purchasing department at LTV
Steel, will be handling the shops, allowing her husband to concentrate on
the nonprofit Ohio Cannabis Society's activism, membership and organizing.
He expects both their household and business budgets will operate on a
"bare-necessity-plus-a-little" basis for a while. "But that's OK. We're at
a point in our lives where we really don't need a lot," he adds. Hartman
also is dealing with a heightened sense of his own mortality that arose
when a genetic kidney disease (which also struck his mother and sister)
forced him from work and hooked him to a dialysis machine eight years ago.
Hartman says a recent near-fatal blood infection hit hard, prompting the
realization that, "I could be here 20 years, 10 years, or maybe two. I just
don't know." That awareness lends an urgency to the direction Hartman is
taking the Ohio Cannabis Society, in terms of creating an active board and
possibly a paid director who could assist Hartman in what has been, until
now, a largely one-man local campaign. "I want to do certain things before
I die," he adds. "I want to take a trip out West. It's something I've
always wanted to do." He'd also like to see marijuana legalized in his
lifetime.

But even if it happened tomorrow, Hartman says that after a short break -
maybe that trip out West - he'd be back in the fray. "I might focus on
making sure that whatever safeguards are established [barring adolescent
use] are maintained so it doesn't end up like alcohol," he says. The
persistence comes as no surprise to his wife. "He lives and breathes that
issue. He'll take it with him to the grave," she says. It's a marijuana
commitment of a different sort; a dedication to advocacy and activism
perhaps equally reflective of an observation Hartman once made regarding
his personal marijuana consumption. "I've always said that I'll stop doing
it when it's no longer fun, and it's still fun."