The Marijuana Smokers
Erich Goode
Chapter 12 - Epilogue: Models of Marijuana Use
Every scientific discipline employs conceptual and theoretical
constructs that help its practitioners to organize and make sense
out of the often confusing facts before them. An event does not
simply occur; it is noticed and classified. These constructs generally
cohere into models: detailed generalizations, each element of
which contributes to the central theme, or thesis. Models structure
our attitudes and responses toward a given phenomenon; they tell
us what to see and what to ignore. Models represent archetypical
patterns built into our minds as a way of understanding events
around us. Some models are more useful than others, organizing
facts more faithfully. By equipping ourselves with one model,
we may distort the essential reality of a phenomenon—although,
at the same time, clarify a small segment of the same phenomenon—while
using a different one will immediately introduce clarity where
a swirling fog-bank of obfuscation and confusion previously prevailed.
Of all arenas of human behavior, illicit nonmedical drug use provides
one of the best examples of the tyranny of models of man. In few
spheres are facts perceived more selectively—by experts and
the public alike—and with less correspondence to the real world.
At least two factors account for the mythical character of contemporary
drug models. The subterranean nature of illegal drug use renders
direct confrontation with a wide range of users, as well as a
broad spectrum of the many aspects and manifestations of use,
unlikely even for the dedicated researcher. What takes place in
the laboratory may not take place in the street; what takes place
in the slum may not happen on the college campus. We are all at
the mercy of culturally (and historically) generated models to
explain the few, highly selective facts which filter through to
us. In addition, the emotional involvement of every member of
society in the drug issue reduces his objectivity and detachment.
What, then, is to be done? It depends on whether we are deductive
or inductive in our method. A common cry today is that we need
less prejudice and more fact. This statement ignores man's powerful
ability to perceive facts selectively. Presenting the same set
of facts to two different observers, each with his own set of
ideological and theoretical perspectives or models, will produce
reports whose conclusions differ fundamentally on every conceivable
important question. Facts are not perceived in the abstract; they
are linked to a general scheme. They are manifestations of larger
processes. By themselves, facts are chaotic assortments of trivia.
At the same time, an iron-clad adherence to a meaningless model,
an ignorance of the facts in preference to an outworn but elegant
scheme, is equally as sterile and misleading. It is at the general
level that we must begin.
What are these obsolete drug models? They range from the ludicrous
to the nearly plausible. The least useful and most erroneous of
these models—and the one most densely woven into historical
and cultural folklore—is what might be called the "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" model of marijuana use. The essential
elements of this notion are that: (1) there is a germ of evil
in even the best of men; (2) some potion, or external chemical
agent, may release this evil; and (3) once the agent is ingested,
the evil will express itself in aggressive and destructive acts
under any and all circumstances. However, this belief that a normal
person, upon ingestion of marijuana, will instantly become a dangerous
and violent maniac is not entertained very seriously in many quarters
today. A perusal of the antimarijuana propaganda of the 1930s
would yield full-blown expressions of this tribal mythology; even
today, the police commonly propagate the notion that there is
a direct causal association between the use of marijuana and the
commission of violent crimes. Not only is this belief held by
a minority among all groups in American society, it is slowly
a dying belief, even among the police. The "Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde" model of marijuana use is interesting mainly for
antiquarian purposes.
A newer and somewhat more realistic model of marijuana use,
taken seriously by medical and lay figures alike, in part
reflects the shift from a punitive to a rehabilitative approach
to the drug question (a shift not yet institutionalized among
law enforcement agencies). This model could be called the "pathology"
or "medical" model. According to this model, marijuana
use, particularly at its more extreme levels of frequent use and
high dosages, has features resembling a medical disease; therefore,
physicians have special competence in dealing with it. In both
its cause and consequence, marijuana use is viewed as a kind of
pathology. Marijuana appeals predominantly to the neurotic and
the troubled young. Although some essentially normal youths will
wander in and out of a marijuana-smoking crowd, the frequent and
fairly long-term, or chronic user, is far more likely to manifest
psychiatric disturbances.
In addition, the marijuana experience is itself seen as pathological.
Being high, under the influence of the drug, is thought to be
by definition abnormal. This view holds that marijuana intoxication
is such that reality is distorted: the subject feels euphoric
(in clinical terms, "where there is no objective basis for
euphoria"); he often emits unmotivated laughter; his sense
of time is elongated (that is, he judges time "incorrectly,"
or his sense of time is "distorted"); he thinks he hears
music more acutely; he thinks food tastes better; he has illusions
of a superior aesthetic sense; and so on. In other words, according
to the pathology model, what is felt and perceived under the influence
of a drug which differs from the normal or nondrug state is in
and of itself abnormal and pathological. In addition, it is
an essential tenet of the pathology model that marijuana tends
to induce temporary insanity, "psychotic episodes,"
in some users.
Moral positions are often justified on rational grounds. To admit
that one or another point of view is merely a matter of taste
is rarely sufficient, particularly to someone who struggles for
moral and ideological dominance. A common strategy to discredit
other points of view is to adopt a health-pathology model of justification.
One's own ideology represents mental or physical health, while
that of one's opponents is pathological. Some of the best examples
of this variety of rationalization may be found in the area of
sexual behavior. To the sexually permissive, indulgence is normal,
and abstinence is sick. To the supporters of abstinence, it is
precisely the reverse:
What is the right thing for the young unmarried woman? The physician
is not a religious teacher and he does not speak on grounds of
morality. He speaks from the standpoint of health, which includes
emotional health. From this standpoint I submit that the desirable
ideal is premarital chastity.[1]
The physician stands in excellent relation to society to make
such judgments. He has sufficient scientific credentials in the
public eye as well as great prestige, to command credibility.
Moreover, his views are not markedly out of line with those of
the majority, so that he may be useful as a means to justify and
rationalize many traditional values, employing a rhetorical or
scientific rationality.
The sociology of medicine is one of the more fascinating the field
has to offer. The illness and health of the human body are social
definitions, not simply natural categories. Even death has a social
dimension; it is not only a physiological fact. What is conceived
of as a matter for appropriate medical attention is decided by
doctors, not by the human body. What the body is thought to do,
and what is thought to be the cause of what it does, varies from
society to society, from epoch to epoch. What attracts a physician's
attention at one time may be of no concern at another—either
because of a change in moral climate or because of new discoveries
in medical science. For example, masturbation was once thought
to be "medically" harmful. Nineteenth-century physicians,
from Krafft-Ebing[2] to
the local general practitioner, attempted to dissuade adolescents
from practicing masturbation for medical reasons; a moral
evaluation was framed in health terms. What was disapproved of
inevitably had to be thought of as physically harmful as well.
The sinner had to bear the bodily signs—stigmata—of
his transgressions. William Acton, the famous Victorian physician,
describes the ravages of masturbation:
The frame is stunted and weak, the muscles undeveloped, the eye
is sunken and heavy, the complexion is sallow, pasty, or covered
with spots of acne, the hands are damp and cold, and the skin
moist. The boy shuns the society of others, creeps about alone,
joins with repugnance in the amusements of his schoolfellows.
He cannot look any one in the face, and becomes careless in dress
and uncleanly in person. His intellect has become sluggish and
enfeebled, and if his evil habits are persisted in, he may end
in becoming a drivelling idiot.... Such boys are to be seen in
all stages of degeneration, but what we have described is but
the result towards which they all are tending.[3]
The parallels between society's condemnation of masturbation in
the Victorian period, and its condemnation of marijuana use today,
extend beyond the claim that both activities ruin the health of
the participant. More specifically, insanity was often viewed
as a likely outcome of both. Both were seen as an indulgence,
a form of moral flabbiness, selfish and unrestrained pleasure-seeking.
And both have earned the label "abuse;" in fact, even
today "to abuse oneself" specifically means to masturbate,
a relic of an earlier moral stance. In both cases, society's moral
attitude toward the activity has elicited from the medical profession
a condemnatory justification cast in the form of medical objectivity.
Social control and the preservation of the status quo become functions
of physicians. When society no longer holds a morally castigating
point of view toward marijuana use, the physician's services will
be withdrawn and called for in a new area.
Popular sociology, as practiced by physicians as well as journalists,
policemen as well as educators, has traditionally conceived of
human activity in zero-sum terms. That is, it was thought
that participation in one kind of human endeavor naturally and
inevitably canceled out another; the more time, emotion, and effort
invested in one activity, the less left over for another. Recent
research in many areas of human life has more often given support
to precisely the opposite perspective: generally, the hypothesis
of "the more, the more" holds up. As John Gagnon put
it, the imagery describing human activities has shifted from Adam
Smith to John Maynard Keynes. Wisely withholding one's time and
energy from one activity often results not in more time and energy
for other activities, but no activity at all. And participation
in certain kinds of activities often means involvement in many
others as well. "Spending" one's time and energy in
one sphere often implies spending more, not less, in other spheres
as well.
In fact, extending our Victorian sexual analogy a step further,
it was not uncommon in the nineteenth century to employ economic
imagery to describe sexual activity; having an orgasm, for instance,
was labeled "spending." And it is in the realm of economics
that the Victorian zero-sum model seems to operate best. One has
a fixed amount of money, and "spending" it leads to
its depletion. Analogously, engaging in sexual activity depleted
one's energy; by conserving it, one had more left over for nonsexual
spheres. Sex, in short, was seen as diminishing one's everyday,
socially approved life.
Few areas of social life reflect this thinking more than the question
of marijuana use. The traditional view holds that smoking marijuana
automatically means the deterioration of one's "normal"
socially approved life, that deterioration is a cause of marijuana
use in the first place, and that further use contributes to deterioration.
Antidrug campaigns often base their appeals on this assumption.
During 1969 and 1970, the National Institute of Mental Health
has engaged in a propaganda effort to dissuade young people from
using drugs. In one of its commercials, a short film, sequences
of potsmoking youths (who, the commentator informs us, have copped
out) are alternated and contrasted with shots of several clean-cut,
energetic college-age young adults who are engaged in community
and social work efforts. In fact, the basic assumption underlying
nearly all antidrug propaganda campaigns is that marijuana use
and all of the things normally valued by our society are mutually
exclusive and incompatible. One chooses drugs or political
activism.
Closely related to the zero sum model is the "escape from
reality" conception of marijuana use. The central axiom of
this thesis is that the user is a troubled individual, who finds
life threatening and frightening, and seeks to alleviate his difficulties
by drifting off into a never-never land of euphoria. The state
of intoxication associated with the marijuana high is viewed as
intrinsically outside the orbit of the normal and the real and,
therefore, by definition, the user seeks an unreal and abnormal
state. It necessarily follows that anyone who smokes marijuana
seeks to escape from reality, since reality is defined as what
is socially acceptable. Thus, marijuana smokers are seen as truants
from life, drop-outs, dwellers in a fantasy world, spinners of
illusions—all living in hallucinations.
Another model currently applied to marijuana use is the "stoned"
view of marijuana use. Many arguments which attempt to discredit
its use and individuals who use it are based on the assumption
that the typical smoker is high a substantial portion of his waking
hours, if not the entire day. There is the feeling that if someone
finds marijuana pleasurable, he will want to become high all the
time. If anyone can justify the use of the drug occasionally,
then why not frequently? The use of marijuana conjures in the
mind of the uninformed an image of the frequent or "chronic"
user. Partly, this attitude is based on the fear of the unknown,
fear that anything which is threatening will become dominant,
overwhelming and destroying that which one values. Part of the
image of the stoned model stems from the world of narcotics addiction
where, it is true, a huge proportion of users eventually become
chronic users.
An essential element in all of the traditional and conventional
models of marijuana use is the view that it is radically discontinuous
with everyday life. Drug use is seen as existing in a moral
and empirical realm wherein all of the taken-for-granted rules
of life are suspended. What governs the law-abiding citizen is
not thought to apply to the drug user, since he is, the thinking
goes, removed from the pale of the law.
I propose to substitute for these models that depend on the disjunction
of the marijuana user from everyday life two more useful models
which, instead, rely on a linear continuum between the user and
the rest of society. In each of these classic models—the Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the pathology, the zero-sum, the escape from
reality, and the stoned models of marijuana use—there is an
either/ or assumption. One is a user, or he is not; marijuana
leads to heroin addiction, or it does not; marijuana causes psychotic
episodes, or it does not; marijuana use is a neurotic acting out,
or it is not. I suggest that the assumptions on which these models
rest are empirically and conceptually inadequate; they are simply
erroneous.
If we look at the facts, we see not a discontinuity separating
the marijuana smoker from the rest of society, but a spectrum
ranging from the nonuser, through the potential convert, the experimenter,
the occasional user, on up to the daily committed smoker who consumes
ten or twelve joints a day, and who is high most of the time.
In a sense, it is improper to speak of the marijuana user,
since there are so many styles of use and degrees of involvement.
Generalizations which apply to the daily user may be completely
erroneous when applied to the experimenter, and so on. We can
only say that one or another statement is more or less likely
to hold up for one or another group.
The idea that marijuana use could not only not detract from, but
actually be associated with, an improvement in the volume and
quality of those very things that are generally considered desirable,
is heresy to the committed antimarijuana lobby, as well as to
an entire tradition in marijuana commentary. Yet such a conclusion
is difficult to avoid. The marijuana user appears to be more active
socially than the nonuser. He has more friends and socializes
more. He is engaged in a larger number and a greater variety of
activities than the nonuser—aesthetic appreciation and
creation, political activism, and social welfare, for instance.
(Of course, some other human endeavors, such as traditional and
formal religious participation, are less often the object of marijuana
users' interests.)
The zero-sum notion assumes that the two realms, the straight
and the stoned, are antagonistic and incompatible, enjoyed by
a wholly different and distinct personnel. In reality, most potsmokers
do not rob their straight life to pay their stoned existence.
More commonly, the two enrich each other. Thus, any model based
on the assumption that by using marijuana those activities which
society values will typically or necessarily deteriorate in the
lives of users has to be faulty. In the average user, no such
process takes place. (It will, of course, be a relatively simple
matter to uncover exceptions.) The average marijuana smoker utilizes
his drug of choice as an adjunct and an enhancer of many of the
activities that the ordinary law-abiding citizen participates
in.
The dire predictions of what happens when someone takes to the
weed do not seem to happen. It is said that although marijuana
is not technically addicting, it does generate a kind of psychological
addiction (thus, the stoned model), and that once legal restrictions
are relaxed, huge numbers of persons will be stupefied most of
their waking hours. When we look at the facts, this argument evaporates.
Most marijuana users smoke the weed occasionally. The truly committed
"head," the smoker who is high the whole day, day in
and day out, is a relative rarity, perhaps comprising 1 or 2 percent
of everyone who has ever smoked marijuana. And yet it is from
this rarefied upper reaches of the world of potsmoking that society's
model of marijuana use is borrowed.
We will, of course, be able to locate specific individuals who
are, in fact, high a great proportion of their waking hours. But
the difference between marijuana and any of the physiologically
addicting drugs—including alcohol—in this respect is so great
as to be a difference of kind, and not simply a matter of degree.
It is only because the medical profession views marijuana use
by definition pathological and abnormal ("abuse" is
defined as taking a drug outside a medical context) that any use
of marijuana has to be viewed, medically, as a kind of habituation,
or psychological addiction. Something anomalous, puzzling, and
disturbing must be labeled pathological. But in less moralistic
terms—and it is only on moral grounds that the medical label
makes any sense at all—it is necessary to face the fact that
the study of a cross-section of all individuals who have tried
marijuana, or even who smoke it regularly, however regularly might
be defined, will yield very few who are high all of the time,
or even more than a few hours each evening. The facts do not support
the stoned model. When the user smokes marijuana he does, indeed,
become high, or stoned. And if one observed his behavior during
this period, he is often measurably less active than normally.
But to say that it is the ultimate goal of a large proportion
of users to seek this state most of the time is to distort the
facts. It is only because researchers cannot understand why anyone
would want to become high in the first place that they find it
necessary to attach the label "psychological addiction"
or "habituation" to his behavior and motives. If they
found use of the substance acceptable, they would not emit this
labeling behavior.
It is clear that another model is necessary. And this model, I
propose, is the recreational model. It fits the facts more faithfully
than any of the previously mentioned models. And it contains none
of the moral judgments that the others are clearly guilty of.
The recreational model takes issue with these perspectives. Essential
to the recreational conception of marijuana use are the following
elements: (1) it is used freely, noncompulsively; (2) it is smoked
episodically—once or several times a week or so on the average;
(3) it is experienced as pleasurable by the participants; (4)
it is used in conjunction with (and not a replacement for) other
enjoyable activities; (5) its impact on one's life is relatively
superficial; (6) its use results in relatively little harm to
the individual; and (7) its use is highly social. By adopting
the recreational perspective toward marijuana use, I do not wish
to imply that everyone who has ever smoked marijuana may be described
in terms of this model, nor even that a majority of all users
are typified by all of these principles. It is, however, to say
that this model presents a relatively accurate summarization of
the experiences of the characteristic user, that these traits
are typically found in marijuana use. In any case, the issue is
an empirical one; if the model is ineffective, then it must be
discarded. In my own research, however, the recreational model
yielded far more insights and more accurately described the reality
I investigated than did any of the traditional models. I found
that most users smoke marijuana recreationally, and I believe
that any study investigating a fairly representative group of
smokers will support the same generalization. It is possible,
of course, to uncover some individuals who are motivated by compulsive
forces and experience overwhelmingly unpleasant reactions. A study
based on users who visit psychiatrists will, naturally be far
more likely to be composed of users whose experiences differ from
the normal everyday user's, and therefore cannot be taken as typical.
In the open air of the user's habitat, the recreational model
will be found to be more fruitful.
A second model which, in my opinion, yields more mileage than
the traditional and conventional images of use is the subcultural
or life-style conception of the user. Marijuana use
is the product of the same essentially normal values and beliefs
of large groups of people that guide other kinds of everyday activities
and choices. Voting for a political candidate, making a purchase,
reading a magazine or newspaper, listening to music, playing and
watching sports—all of these are influenced by the social groups
to which we belong. No one questions the fact that Jews are more
likely to vote Democratic than Protestants, that a heavier proportion
of working-class men read the New York Daily News than
read The New York Times while among professional workers,
it is the reverse, that residents of large cities spend proportionally
more of their time and money on "serious" art and music
than do residents of more rural areas. These sorts of subcultural
appeals are well-known and entreat our common sense.
But if our attention turns to less common and more condemned activities,
we find it necessary to ignore these broad and essentially normal
appeals and to search out pathological motives. If it is the young
to whom marijuana appeals, we must assume that they are rebelling
against authority, or trying to kill their fathers, or escaping
from boredom or reality, or whatever. If it is the urban dweller
who is more likely to use marijuana, we point to an anomic, disintegrating
urban society. If it is the affluent, then we complain about how
the affluent are overindulging their young, and intone darkly
about the hazards of affluence.
Different social groups in society have somewhat different marijuana
potentials. Greater or lesser proportions of their ranks are likely
to try and use the weed because of characteristics relating to
that group. Patterns of use are not accidental, and they are not
pathological. They emerge out of the social fabric of the values
and the circumstances of a segment of society. They do not typically
occur as a result of some dark, unconscious motive. The subcultural
attitudes and values of some groups support such an action as
marijuana use, while those of other groups oppose it. In addition,
opportunities for use are differentially dispersed throughout
society. Simply by being around the stuff ecologically, groups
differ in their likelihood of taking it.
Thus, when we say that men are more likely to smoke marijuana
than women, it is not permissible to say that men are more likely
to be psychiatrically disturbed than women. Rather, it makes more
sense to say that there is something about the role of men in
this society that is related to marijuana use—a greater emphasis
on experimentation, adventure, masculine daring, a greater influence
of youth peer groups, and so on. And when we say that marijuana
use is more likely to take place on the left of the American political
spectrum than on the right, we cannot say that the left is in
need of medical and psychiatric attention. Although it would serve
a useful ideological function to any existing regime to pin a
pathology label on its radical critics, it would not serve a scientific
function. Such a position represents an attempt to discredit an
opposing point of view by crystallizing one's own ideology into
a pseudoscientific reality. Marijuana experimentation is woven
into the life style of the political left (except, as we pointed
out earlier, at the very extreme left), and not of the political
right; is it then possible to say that the left is wrong, or bad,
and the right good, or right? When two-thirds of the students
of Columbia Law school say that they have tried marijuana, and
nearly 100 percent say that marijuana use and possession should
be legalized, do we then attempt to uncover pathologies in the
members of Columbia Law School? Do we really wish to pathologize
the activities and beliefs which separate one generation from
another? Do we wish to stigmatize our future?
N O T E S
1. Max Levin, "The Meaning of Sex and
Marriage," Bride and Home, Autumn 1968, p. 103. (back)
2. Recall that the subtitle of Richard von
Krafft-Ebing's study, Psychopathia Sexualis first published
in 1886, was "A Medico-Forensic Study," which means
that he was presenting cases in a court in an effort to demonstrate
that they should be treated medically, not punitively; he had,
therefore, to present moral outrage at the practices he described
to gain the confidence of the court. This merely emphasizes my
point, however. (back)
3. Quoted in Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians
(New York: Basic Books, 1966), p. 19