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The Marijuana Smokers
Erich Goode
foreword by Alfred R. Lindesmith
Contents
The Marijuana Smokers ©1970 by Basic Books
appears in The Schaffer Library by permission of the Author.
FOREWORD
ALFRED R. LINDESMITH
Professor of Sociology, Indiana University
It seems clear today that our anti-marijuana laws must and will
be changed. Indeed, something like two-thirds of the states have
already either reduced penalties or have such reductions under
consideration. A similar trend has appeared on the national scene.
In the meantime the great debate on the subject, which is so skilfully
dissected and probed by Professor Goode, rages on. On the one
hand, the use of marijuana seems to be spreading in ever-widening
circles, while, on the other, the debate itself seems to be intensifying
and regressing to lower levels. What began some decades ago as
a fairly dignified intellectual argument among relatively small
numbers of scholars, scientists, and public officials has degenerated
into something like a huge barroom brawl with nearly everyone
getting into the act. The fact that changes in the laws now seem
to be in the offing probably has less connection with the debate
than with the fact that pot is now being smoked by so many sons
and daughters and some adults of the affluent and influential
classes that wield political power.
The use of drugs constitutes intrinsically a personal habit, which,
if it leads to any harm, directly and primarily injures the user
himself rather than others. According to the doctrine of criminal
law, acts ought ordinarily to be defined as crimes only when they
threaten or injure others. Since our marijuana and other drug
laws provide severe punishment for the mere possessor of the drug,
regardless of whether there is any harm to others or even to self,
they are correctly designated as morality legislation. Professor
Goode has thus provided us with a superb account and analysis
of the dilemmas, contradictions, and problems generated by the
attempt to legislate morality.
Perhaps a central dilemma of the anti-marijuana laws and of our
drug laws in general is that the evil personal and social consequences
of felony prosecutions are probably greater than are the effects
of any drug, whether it be marijuana, heroin, or alcohol. Historical
examples of the unhappy consequences that seem characteristically
to follow from governmental attempts to suppress popular bad habits
by exercising policy power are numerous. The current crisis with
respect to heroin addiction in our biggest cities after a half
century of severe repression is another example.
It is axiomatic in democratic societies that, to be effective
and just, governing must be done with the consent of the governed.
To be effectively enforced, laws must enlist popular support and
be based on some reasonable societal consensus. Sheer majority
rule is not the whole story either, for it entails the hazard
of tyranny by the majority. On the majority principle alone the
blacks in the United States would have no hope, since they could
always be outvoted by the white majority. The drug problem, like
that of race, involves fundamental principles that qualify and
limit majority rule, such as those of minority rights, individual
liberty, equality before the law, and the right of privacy. Official
discussions of drug policy have in the past ordinarily ignored
such matters and have, instead, focused almost exclusively on
punishment, deterrence, and protection of society, with society
so conceived as to exclude the user of illicit drugs.
To those who believe as I do that the present marijuana laws are
unjust and divisive and that the pot debate is more dangerous
to the society than pot itself, the current disposition on many
questions to treat the whole subject as a joke suggests that basic
change may be nearer than we think. As Goode effectively demonstrates,
mere evidence, logical arguments, and the other standard devices
that are used to persuade and produce consensus among reasonable
men do not seem to work in this case---perhaps because the debate
is not a real one but only an expression of underlying and unstated
motivations, resentments, or political considerations. Perhaps
the case for reform can best be made by jokes and laughter.
At any rate, it is evident that a great deal of public joking
is being done and that the user of marijuana is not seriously
regarded as a genuine criminal. Recent movies, for example, portray
the use of pot as a gag, and at least one movie director has stated
that real marijuana was smoked during the filming. Pot parties,
involving the commission of what the statutes define as heinous
crimes, have been presented on the television screen to entertain
the viewing public. Various popular television programs regularly
include pot jokes. In private conversations such jokes are even
more common, and little or no stigma attaches in many circles
to admitting in private that one has smoked or would like to smoke.
Numerous stories float around about policemen, even narcotic agents,
who smoke the weed or have at least tried it. The experiment with
alcohol prohibition, it will be remembered, was also to some extent
laughed out of court.
It, of course, is no laughing matter to be busted for a marijuana
offense, as the police sometimes grimly remind us. Nevertheless,
the statistical evidence demonstrates that criticism of the laws,
widespread disregard and disrespect for the marijuana laws and
their enforcers, and the sheer impossibility and absurdity of
trying to lock up any appreciable proportion of the users, especially
of middle- and upper-class users, has begun seriously to undermine
enforcement morale. In agreement with a large proportion of the
public, enforcement and court officials probably intuitively believe
that it is harm to others, not to self, that makes crime and consequently
find it impossible or difficult to think of a marijuana user as
a real criminal. The idea that such persons should be incarcerated
in already overcrowded penal institutions in order to protect
society and to cure them of a personal habit which harms no one
else, and possibly not even them, is probably hard for officials
to grasp also. At any rate, there is an enormous gap between the
law as written and the law as actually enforced, and this fact
further discredits the system and the establishment.
Professor Goode does not spell out precisely what changes ought
to be made or what our drug policy ought to be. He is primarily
concerned with depicting the way of life and points of view of
the marijuana smoker and with analyzing the arguments and perspectives
of those who are in one way or another concerned with marijuana
policy. Information of the kind he presents so perceptively, honestly,
and fully should play a vital and indispensable role in the eventual
formulation of a wiser policy than the present one. Perhaps the
implication of his book might best be described as procedural
rather than substantive: that before we legislate we should know
what we are doing and try to understand both the people whom we
legislate against and those whom we think we are protecting. It
is probable, for example, that if the drug laws were framed so
as to provide protection from dangers which the young, users and
nonusers alike, themselves perceive as dangers, they would support
such laws. At present the law poses a greater threat than the
drugs themselves. What is implied by these suggestions is not
necessarily that marijuana be legalized, whatever that means,
but that we return to the principle of government with the consent
of the governed.
July 1970
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Styles of research are as varied as the researchers who practice
them. At one pole we have the massively collective enterprise,
located in a well-endowed bureau of research, often undertaken
by no one in particular and completed by a dozen hands whose involvement
bears no relation to the interests or passions of their lives;
not uncommonly, the project is conducted for the simple reason
that some organization will derive, or thinks it will derive,
some practical utility therefrom, and is willing to pay for it.
At the other pole, we have the efforts of a lone scholar, be he
amateur or professional who imbues every aspect of his work with
the stamp of his idiosyncrasies and concerns; with him, the project
is undertaken and the research completed not because it was financially
supported, but because he was determined to find out what the
answers were.
In spite of the fact that this book belongs to the latter of these
two types, the debts I have incurred in the effort are manifold.
First and foremost among them is the thanks that is due my 204
respondents. It is their book, really, their story, and I hope
that I have been faithful to their will and impulse. Certainly
this book would not exist without their cooperation and their
willingness to risk exposure by talking to me. It is their wish,
naturally, to receive my thanks anonymously. Second, the cost
of many of the more tedious details of research were covered by
the National Institute of Mental Health whose grant (MH-15659)
enabled me to pay a part-time research assistant for one year,
a job which Miss Judith Rutberg performed with especial efficiency
and good cheer. In addition, a Faculty Research Fellowship from
the Research Foundation of the State University of New York relieved
me of the burden of having to earn a living during the two summers
of 1968 and 1969 that it took to write this book. To both granting
agencies I am profoundly grateful. The sponsorship of neither
indicates any agreement with my conclusions; in fact, insofar
as it is possible to detect an official view, that of both agencies
would be unfavorable to my own. It is a sign of a healthy society
that support may be found for views which vary from the official
perspective.
The third debt I owe is to the colleagues and friends who offered
useful comments, criticisms, suggestions, and pieces of information.
Some of the most helpful of these I received from Jerry Mandel,
Eliot Freidson, Andrew Weil, Richard Evans Schultes, John Gagnon,
Harvey Farberman, Bill French, Stephen Berger, James Hudson, Stephen
Cole, John O'Donnell, Gilbert Geis, Robert Bagnall, Josephine
Lopez, Richard Bogg, and David and Nanci Orlow. I was privileged
to make use of a manuscript of a forthcoming book by Professor
John Kaplan on marijuana use which proved to be extremely useful.
Generally, our conclusions separately corroborate one another,
but some cross-fertilization did take place. In writing style,
my editor, William Gum, has done an heroic job of keeping my untidy
prose in reasonably readable form. And finally, my wife, Alice,
who tolerated a partial neglect during my productive months, deserves
at least one hosanna.
A few sections of this book have appeared in print previously.
Chapter 3, "Marijuana and the Politics of Reality,"
is a slightly revised version of an article of the same name which
was published in the June 1969 issue of the Journal of Health
and Social Behavior. Chapter 8, "Multiple Drug Use among
Marijuana Smokers," is a revised and expanded version of
a paper which first appeared in the Summer 1969 issue of Social
Problems (published by The Society for the Study of Social
Problems). Chapter 10, "Using, Selling, and Dealing Marijuana,"
appeared, in condensed form, in the Columbia Forum, Winter
1969 as "The Marijuana Market." The section in Chapter
7 on sexual behavior was published in the May 1969 issue of the
Evergreen Review, as "Marijuana and Sex." I occasionally
quote from my anthology, Marijuana, published by the Atherton
Press, 1969. Permission to reprint these works is gratefully acknowledged.
E.G.
June 1970
Strong's Neck, New York
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