Derrick Grimmer is still fighting for his “right” to get high. He’s quieter about it now, though.

The United States is experiencing “an erosion of civil rights,” said Grimmer, founder of the Ames chapter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

Grimmer, an industrial research associate at the Microelectronics Research Center in the Iowa State Research Park, was the adviser of the Iowa State student chapter of NORML before it disbanded three years ago.

Grimmer said student attention has wandered away from the legalization issue, but he’d be willing to again champion the cause.

“Nobody really did anything. It’s their [students] organization to do something with. It became a real pain to get students who would be officers,” he said. Grimmer said he didn’t have the energy to recruit members on his own.

Still, many people approach Grimmer “after they’ve been busted,” for marijuana possession.

“I’m in a pro-active mode,” he said. “The enthusiasm, the drive, has to come from the people. I’ve personally been backing off a little bit.” Grimmer has been a prominent state and national figure in the push for legalization.

And he’d like to again have an ISU NORML chapter.

GSB President Adam Gold said he would welcome any new student organization but does not support the legalizing of marijuana.

“If they meet all the criteria for student organizations, they have all the power to do that,” Gold said. “I think it’s a drug, and it should stay illegal. I don’t think [legalizing marijuana] is the answer to the problem.”

The main advantage of registering as a student organization is the possibility of GSB funding.

Grimmer said he makes himself available as a resource and a channel for action at both the community and university levels. “I can provide information. I can tell you what the reality of a situation is,” he said. “I’m always willing to go talk to groups.”

Vikram Dilal, a professor of electrical computer engineering, works with Grimmer at the Microelectronics Research Center. “I have known Derrick since 1981. I know him as a scientist and as a very decent and honorable human being,” Dilal said.

“He believes that society needs to make a distinction between drug use and drug criminalization. He believes that the criminalization of marijuana has prevented people from using it for medicinal [purposes],” Dilal, said. “I happen to agree that marijuana should be decriminalized.”

Grimmer said his involvement in the movement to legalize marijuana began in the early 1980s, when he became the coordinator for the New Mexico chapter of NORML. “The marijuana prohibition is one of the least defensible. No one dies from the substance,” he said.

He continued his involvement in later years with the Minnesota chapter as well as the University of Minnesota student chapter.

“I’ve been around the block a few times with this thing. In 1990 I started up the Ames chapter,” Grimmer said. “About a year into it, we got some pretty good student activists.” It was then that he filed with the university activities center as a student organization.

The legalization issue is an apparently touchy campus subject.

Nearly 30 students interviewed for this article would not comment on the issue. Some said they feel they are not well-enough informed to make an opinion, while others said they are concerned about their image among peers and instructors.

Several students said they feel legalization is a non-issue, either due to the scores of government anti-drug campaigns or because those who use marijuana will continue to do so regardless of its legality.