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On Being Stoned
Charles T. Tart, Ph. D.
Chapter 3. Method of the Study
THE PRESENT STUDY had a variety of origins, all centered around
my long term interest in altered states of consciousness. For
several years I had read many anecdotal accounts of what it was
like to be intoxicated on marijuana,[1]
talked with many students and acquaintances (hereafter referred
to as pilot subjects and informants) about what being intoxicated
was like, and tried to do some theorizing that would make some
sense and order out of the many phenomena reported. What little
sense I have been able to make out of things in terms of theorizing
has been presented in Chapter 2. This
theorizing also made it clear that a systematic look at the overall
phenomenology of altered states of consciousness was vital. The
present study is an initial systematic look for one state of consciousness,
marijuana intoxication.
For several years I took systematic notes on various phenomena
reported for marijuana intoxication, and, based on these, a large
questionnaire was made up. The questionnaire used the current
language of marijuana users ("heads") as much as possible.
It was distributed with a covering letter that was intended to
be friendly and to induce cooperation among users both in filling
out the questionnaire and in passing questionnaires along to other
users. The text of the letter is given below.
To: ANYONE WHO HAS SMOKED MARIJUANA
MORE THAN A DOZEN TIMES
I usually start a letter with "Dear So-and-so," but
somehow greetings like "Dear Marijuana Smoker," "Dear
Head," "To whom it may concern," or anything else
like that sound pretty bad, so I'm skipping the greeting and getting
right down to the point.
One of my main research interests as a psychologist is the area
of altered states of consciousness. I am particularly interested
in investigating the psychological effects of marijuana, both
for their intrinsic interest and for comparison with other altered
states of consciousness. Reading the (scant) scientific literature
on marijuana is disappointing, for most everything is on the order
of, "Gee whiz, I smoked (or ate) grass, and I saw all sorts
of pretty pictures which can't be described, and gee whiz, etc.,
etc., etc." That's very nice for a start, but not very specific!
From preliminary talks with people who smoke marijuana, it is
obvious that there are many and varied effects, and that it would
be of great psychological interest to know what they are. Scientists,
as a whole, know practically nothing about the experience of smoking
marijuana. You do. The ideal way to expand our knowledge about
these effects would be to have people smoke it under a variety
of conditions, with known amounts and qualities of grass, and
then report on it. Even a rudimentary knowledge of the legal situation,
though, tells you genuine laboratory research on marijuana is
virtually impossible.
So I'd like to enlist your help as an expert; you've been there
and, I hope, you would like to see us really know something about
marijuana experiences on a scientific level, instead of just an
anecdotal level. Enclosed is a questionnaire. It has a few basic
questions about how much you've used marijuana, other drug experiences,
and so on, to get a little background. Then the main part consists
of over two hundred statements about possible experiences during
the marijuana high that have been selected from preliminary surveys.
I would like you to fill out the questionnaire and rate each of
the described experiences in terms of how frequently it happens
to you and how stoned you have to be to experience it. This is
explained more fully in the questionnaire.
If you will help by carefully filling in this questionnaire and
by passing more of these questionnaires on to other heads, what
will you accomplish? The following kinds of questions can be answered
from analyzing this data. What sorts of experiences occur when
stoned, with what frequency? How are they related to how stoned
you are? What kinds of differences are there between individuals?
Are there several different patterns of going up, or does everybody
go up the same way? How is the marijuana experience related to
experience with other drugs? How is it related to how long people
have been smoking? Are there certain more basic factors that account
for a lot of the specific experiences? And many other things.
O.K., I'm going to learn a lot, and so will the scientific community
when the results are published. What will you learn? The same
thing. I don't like the kind of research (of which there is too
much today) where the all-knowing scientist manipulates his stupid
subjects. You're acting as the expert, the explorer, and you should
be able to learn a lot for your trouble in helping me. Now, I
can't get your name and mail you anything (that would run the
paranoia level too high!), but it is common practice in science
to send reprints of research results to anyone who requests them.
If you will drop me a card in about a year (it takes that long
to analyze everything and get it published), I will send you a
copy of the results. No need to be paranoid on that, as I will
get lots of reprint requests from people who have nothing to do
with this study.
While we're on the subject of paranoia: you are able to help in
this study on the basis of your past experience. I am not
advocating that anyone smoke marijuana or do anything illegal
in order to be able to fill out this questionnaire, but naturally
you don't want to put your name on it! Note also that it is not
illegal to fill out a questionnaire. The questionnaire comes with
a stamped, return envelope so you can return it to me anonymously.
The data from the questionnaires will be punched on IBM cards,
and the original questionnaires destroyed as soon as possible.
The way these questionnaires are being distributed also insures
your anonymity. I don't know any marijuana smokers by name, so
I am simply putting these questionnaires out in places where marijuana
smokers may have a chance to pick them up, and just handing them
to people who might or might not know smokers, until this finally
reaches you, with me having no idea of the route. In turn, please
take as many questionnaires from whatever source you get this
as you think you can pass on to other marijuana smokers. The more
returns I can get, the more revealing this research will be.
I'm asking for about an hour or two of your time. In return, you
will eventually know a lot more about the psychological effects
of marijuana, and the scientific community will learn even more
(considering the starting level); hopefully this knowledge will
eventually result in more rational attitudes toward marijuana
use.
If you can't fill this out, through lack of time or experience,
please pass this material and any other sets of it you have along
to someone who can.
Many thanks!
Sincerely yours,
CHARLES T. TART, PH.D.
Because most users experience a variety of intoxication phenomena
by the third or fourth time they use marijuana, I selected the
cutoff of a dozen uses to define an "experienced" user.
As noted in Chapter 4, all the users who returned the questionnaire
were far above this minimal cutoff.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE
The questionnaire consisted of three parts: (1) instructions;
(2) background information questions (reported on in Chapters
4 and 5) covering such things as age, sex, occupation, education,
history of drug use, and so forth; and (3) 220 descriptions of
effects the users might have experienced. (The questionnaire is
reproduced in full in Appendix B.)
Instructions for Filling Out the Questionnaire
The following instructions were attached to each questionnaire:
Do not put your name on this questionnaire or otherwise identify yourself.
The first two pages of the questionnaire are self-explanatory
questions about your background, how much you've used pot, and
your experiences with other drugs.
The rest of the questionnaire consists of statements describing
a wide variety of experiences people have reported having while
stoned. These descriptive statements have been taken from a wide
variety of different people's accounts and it is unlikely that
any single person has experienced all of the things described.
The statements are grouped into categories, such as Vision Effects,
Hearing Effects, changes in Space-Time Perception, and so on.
Some descriptive statements are relevant to more than one such
category, but they are only listed under one, in order to keep
this questionnaire as short as possible.
Each statement describes a particular kind of experience, for
example, "I can see more subtle shades of color." The
sense of each statement is that whatever effect is described,
it is considerably stronger or somehow different when stoned than
if you were experiencing it straight. That is, some of the things
described can be experienced to some degree when straight but
are reported to be much more intense or different when stoned.
Even if the statement does not include the phrase "than when
straight," this comparison is implicit in all the statements.
For each descriptive statement, you are to make two ratings.
The first is how frequently you have experienced that particular
effect when stoned, judging against all the times you have been
stoned in the last six months.[2]
Circle the answer category that most closely describes how often
you experience that effect. The categories, reproduced under each
description, are:
Never = you have never experienced this effect.
Rarely = you've experienced it at least once, but it's not at
all frequent.
Sometimes = you experience it between about 10 percent and 40
percent of the time.
Very Often = you experience it more than about 40 percent of the
time.
Usually = if you experience it practically every time you get
stoned.
These rating categories are approximate, so while you should use
your best Judgment you need not try to count over all your experiences!
The second rating to make for each descriptive statement is one
of how stoned you have to be to experience it (if you have
experienced it at all; if you haven't, don't rate this for that
statement). That is, there is an assumption that some sorts of
things can be experienced if you're just a little stoned, while
other things can't be experienced unless you're very stoned. There
is a minimal degree of "stonedness" that you have to
be at to experience a particular effect. The "How Stoned?"
scale under each descriptive statement runs from Just, which is
the smallest degree to which you could be stoned and know that
you were stoned, to Maximum, which is the most stoned you've ever
been after smoking a lot of high quality pot.
It is possible to think about the "How Stoned" rating
as relating to the amount of pot you smoke (or eat), but this
is only a rough parallel because of the variations in the quality
of pot. Thus this rating scale is defined in terms of your own
perception of how stoned you have to be to experience the described
effect, and you are asked to make five discriminations of your
degree of stonedness, with Just and Maximum at the low and high
ends of the scale, and Fairly, Strongly, and Very Strongly as
intermediate points.
To take an example, the first descriptive statement is, "I
can see new colors or more subtle shades of color than when I'm
straight." You might have this happen to you about half the
times you get stoned (ignoring for the moment how stoned you are
over all these times in the last six months), so you would circle
the Very Often category. Then, thinking about how stoned you have
to be to experience it, you might feel that it doesn't happen
to you unless you're very stoned, so you'd circle the Very Strongly
category. Thus you would be saying that you can't experience (or
haven't experienced) this when you've been just stoned, or fairly
stoned, or even when strongly stoned; but when you're very strongly
stoned or maximally stoned you can experience the change in color
perception.
It may be that you've experienced a particular effect at several
degrees of "stonedness," but what you're rating here
is the minimal level of stonedness you must be to experience it.
There is one other category on the "How Stoned" scale,
marked LSD. You are to circle this category only if you
have experienced that effect after having taken one of the very
powerful psychedelic drugs like LSD, DMT, DET, mescaline, peyote,
psilocybin, or STP. Thus there will probably be a number of things
described that you've never experienced with pot but have with
one of the more powerful psychedelics (if you've had any of the
more powerful psychedelics).
There are a few questions where the two scales "Frequency"
and "How Stoned" don't apply, and space is left for
a descriptive answer.
There are a number of experiences that occur when stoned for which
the opposite also occurs frequently; e.g., sometimes colors may
be more intense and sometimes they may be duller. A bracket has
been put in the left-hand margin whenever two questions are linked
this way. Thus, you might find colors get brighter sometimes at
a minimal degree of Very Stoned, and also that colors get duller
frequently at a minimal degree of Just.
Finally, space has been left at the end for you to describe any
effects you get from being stoned that haven't been mentioned
in this questionnaire. In making up this questionnaire it was
attempted to mention everything that people may have written
about as happening while stoned, but some things have undoubtedly
been missed, so this is your chance to complete the list!
Please rate the statements as accurately as you can. Whenever
you feel that the way the statement is phrased doesn't quite fit
your experiences, feel free to write in an explanation. If a statement
makes no sense at all to you, put a ? beside it and skip it. It
is understood that many of the experiences of being stoned are
difficult to express in words!
Answer this questionnaire while straight, and when it is complete,
seal it in the attached return envelope (do not put a return address
on it!) and mail.
The envelope is already addressed and stamped.
It is so commonplace and trite on psychological questionnaires
to say "Thank you" that I hesitate to say it, but l
really do appreciate your filling this out!
Possible Effect Descriptions
Figure 3-1 shows part of the first page of
the actual questionnaire. Each possible effect statement (referred
to simply as "question" or "item" from now
on) was presented in this way, with a few exceptions, described
later.[3]
FIGURE 3-1. FORMAT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
| VISION SENSE: |
| 1. I can see new colors or more subtle shades of color than when
I'm straight. |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
| 2. Colors get duller, not as vivid. |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
3. There is a sensual quality to vision, as if I were somehow
"touching" the
objects or people I am looking at. |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
4. When I look at pictures they may acquire an element of visual
depth, a third
dimensional aspect that they don't have when straight. |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
| 5. The world looks flat; it lacks the third dimension of depth. |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
6. I see fringes of colored light around people (not objects),
what people
have called the "aura." |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
7. I see fringes of colored light around objects (not people),
what people
have called the "aura." |
| | Frequency? | Never | Rarely | Sometimes | Very Often | Usually | |
| | How Stoned? | Just | Fairly | Strongly | Vy Strongly | Maximum | LSD |
VALIDITY PROBLEMS
For the present study to produce valid, accurate information about
the nature of marijuana intoxication, we must feel reasonably
certain that the possible effect descriptions mean what they seem
to mean and that the respondents answered without bias or error,
i.e., that they were careful in giving their answers and did not
deliberately distort their answers in any fashion.
In wording the possible effect descriptions, I compromised between
using standard English and drug-culture argot. I used the latter
only when it was clear, as "stoned" or "high"
for intoxicated. I avoided other argot terms like "far out,"
which have come to be used so ambiguously as to be worthless for
communication. Thus the possible effect descriptions generally
seem clear as to what they mean. For those few which may be unfamiliar
to non-drug users, I have included brief explanations and/or references
at appropriate places in the text.
A second language difficulty is that there are a variety of effects
that users insist cannot be put into words, even approximately.
These have necessarily been left out of the present study.
What about careless answering, or deliberate bias in answering
designed to create an overly favorable picture of intoxication?
Three steps were taken to reduce this problem. First, the sympathetic
tone of the covering letter and instructions hopefully reduced
the need for the users' justifying themselves. Second, my promise
to get results back to them made accurate reporting favor the
users' self-interest. Third, a validity scale, described in the
next section, was used to eliminate overly careless or bizarre
questionnaires from the analysis.
While eventual replication of the present results by others is
the final test of validity, the above steps, plus my knowledge
of marijuana intoxication acquired from pilot subjects and informants,
gives me confidence that the present results are reasonably accurate.
Validity Scale
Fourteen of the 220 items constituted a validity scale. These
were descriptions, scattered randomly through the questionnaire,
of "possible effects" which I had never heard of or
had heard of only extremely rarely, which seemed extremely unlikely
to occur, and (one) which had been used in studies of hypnosis
as a validity item (Orne, 1959).
No single improbable answer can necessarily disqualify a questionnaire,
because the respondent may actually have experienced an improbable
effect. The a priori decision was made to disqualify any questionnaire
with six or more positive responses on the validity scale, as
this would be an extremely improbable occurrence, warranting suspicion.
The 14 items of the validity scale, together with the percentages
of the 150 final respondents[4]
rating each frequency category, are shown in Table 3-1.
The a priori rules for counting an answer
as a point on the validity scale are indicated by the boxes around
certain response categories for each item. For example, if a user
answered item 26 by circling Very Often, it would count a point
on the validity scale, but not if he circled Never, Rarely, or
Sometimes.
For the 150 questionnaires used for analysis, the mean validity
scale score was only 1.5, so the final group of users did not
show a bizarre patterning of answers on this scale, and we may
presume they were careful in filling out their questionnaires.
DISTRIBUTION OF QUESTIONNAIRES
Because of the severe legal penalties attached to the possession,
use, or sale of marijuana it was important to assure the users'
anonymity in order to get any returned questionnaires. The distribution
technique consisted of my handing large stacks of questionnaires
to students and acquaintances whom I thought might be marijuana
smokers and/or who might have friends who were marijuana smokers,
and asking them to keep passing them on to other users. This worked
very well. Many times students walked into my office and asked
for more to pass out. In this way I had no names of anyone and
could not even tell if the people I thought were smokers actually
filled out a questionnaire. Users who completed the questionnaire
simply put it in the attached, stamped return envelope and mailed
it to me.
Data Reduction
All properly filled out and acceptable questionnaires returned
by a cut-off date several months after distribution were coded
onto IBM cards and magnetic tape for later processing at the computer
centers of the University of California at Davis and at Berkeley.
SUMMARY
A large questionnaire was constructed on the basis of readings
and informal interviews with marijuana users. It was distributed,
along with a sympathetic covering letter, in a fashion that ensured
anonymity of the respondents. Only experienced marijuana users
were asked to fill out and return the questionnaire.
For each of more than two hundred possible intoxication effects,
the user was asked to rate how frequently he had experienced that
effect in the last six months of use and the minimal degree of
intoxication necessary to experience it.
TABLE 3-1
VALIDITY SCALE ITEMS
(back to text)
| | PERCENTAGE OF USERS ANSWERING: (a) |
|---|
| Q NO. | ITEM | Nvr | Rly | Smt | VyO | Uly |
|---|
|
| 26 | I have difficulty hearing things clearly, sounds are blurry and indistinct. | 61% | 23% | 13% | 1% | 1% |
|---|
| 42 | I salivate quite a lot when stoned. | 44% | 30% | 13% | 5% | 5% |
|---|
| 54 | Objects seem to tilt toward the left. | 80% | 10% | 3% | 1% | 1% |
|---|
| 57 | The force of gravity seems to alternate between pushing me up and pushing me down. | 56% | 14% | 17% | 5% | 5% |
|---|
| 72 | When there is any trembling in my body, the upper half of my body trembles much more than the lower half. | 69% | 7% | 10% | 5% | 3% |
|---|
| 87 | My scalp itches a lot if I have smoked too much grass. | 80% | 13% | 6% | 1% | 1% |
|---|
| 97 | My non-dominant hand (left if you're right-handed and vice versa) becomes partially paralyzed, unusable. | 86% | 9% | 2% | 1% | 0% |
|---|
| 102 | I tremble a lot in my hands for a while after having been stoned. | 71% | 20% | 7% | 0% | 1% |
|---|
| 104 | Smoking grass makes me cough hard while inhaling and holding my breath. | 14% | 42% | 32% | 9% | 2% |
|---|
| 132 | My mind goes completely blank for long periods (15 minutes or more) even though I'm not asleep... | 56% | 27% | 13% | 2% | 0% |
|---|
| 166 | I almost invariably feel bad when I turn on, regardless of how I felt before I turned on. | 47% | 36% | 9% | 1% | 1% |
|---|
| 180 | I have lost control and been "taken over" by an outside force or will, which is hostile or evil in intent, for a while. | 79% | 14% | 4% | 0% | 0% |
|---|
| 181 | I have lost control and been "taken over" by an outside force or will, which is good or divine, for a while. | 63% | 16% | 9% | 5% | 1% |
|---|
| 187 | When stoned I lose most of my sense of ego identity and usually take on the identity of my like-sexed parent (father for males, mother for females). | 79% | 10% | 7% | 0% | 1% |
|---|
|
(a) A given row may not add to exactly 100% because of users'
skipping
that item and/or rounding errors. The scored direction
for counting
on the validity scale is given in bold-face responses.
Footnotes
1. Well-written anecdotal accounts may be
found in Andrews and Vinkenoog (1967), Anonymous (1969), Bloomquist
(1968), de Ropp (1967), Ebin (1961), Goode (1969), Hollander (1967),
Rosevear (1967), Simmons (1967), and Solomon (1966). (back)
2. The experience of the last six months is
used rather than all your experience to cut down inaccuracies
due to memories' fading. It may be that there are changes in how
frequently you experience various things as you get more experience
in being stoned, but this can be analyzed for in comparing the
responses of new heads and old heads. If, however, you haven't
been stoned very much in the past six months, use all your
experiences for estimating frequencies. (back)
3. In retrospect, I believe I should have
used a 7- or 10-point scale for frequency and intoxication levels,
as I had forgotten the tendency of people to avoid extreme categories
on any scale. (back)
4. A number of returned questionnaires were
rejected because of high validity scale scores or other reasons,
as discussed in Chapter 4. Validity score data on rejected users
are not included in Table 3-1. (back)
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