High Culture:

  Marijuana in the Lives of Americans

    by William Novak

High Culture Appears in The Psychedelic Library by permission of the author Copyright 1980 William Novak ISBN 0-394-73828

Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

1.   An Overview of Marijuana

2.   The First Time

3.   Marijuana Activities I: Food and Music

4.   Marijuana Activities II

5.   Sex and Intimacy

6.   The Social Drug

7.   "I Get Paid for Paranoia"
        A Self-Portrait of a Marijuana Dealer

8.   Marijuana and the Mind

9.   The Personal Drug: Heart, Body, and Soul

10.  Looking Back: When Grass Was Greener

11.  Varieties of Marijuana

12.  Dangers and Problems, Real and Alleged

13.  Using Marijuana Well—and Using It Badly

14.  Looking Ahead: Smoders Speculate on the Future

    Appendix I: Letters from Smokers (and Nonsmokers)

    Appendix II: Studies on the Effects of Marijuana in Users

    Annotated Bibliography

    Selected Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not have written this book without the assistance of a number of people. I learned a great deal from conversations with experts in various areas of marijuana research, including Norman Zinberg, Andrew Weil, Lester Grinspoon, Howard Becker, Wayne Harding, Richard Evans Schultes, Erich Goode, Jack Margolis, Lance Christie, Jonathan Earle, Carlton Turner, and Laurence Cherniak. I am grateful to Daniel X. Freedman, Charles Tart, Reese Jones, Solomon Snyder, Harry Klonoff, and Walter Houston Clark for answering the questions I asked them.
    Michael Aldrich of the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library in San Francisco was helpful and patient beyond my ability to thank him. Laurence McKinney was extremely generous with his time and ideas and offered many thoughtful and valuable suggestions.
    I am grateful to the librarians at Wessell Library of Tufts University, and to the staff of the Economic Botany Library of Harvard University for assistance in locating obscure books and articles.
    Steven Axelrod, my agent, and Ann Close, my editor, supported this project from the beginning, providing much-needed encouragement and advice at various points during the preparation of the book.
    Several people were indispensable in the preparation of the final manuscript: Peggy Wagner, Pamela Eells, and especially Linda Manaly Novak.
    I benefited from the advice and comments of many friends: Karen Gorman Kramer, Marc Kramer, Eva Fogelman, Richard Siegel, Jeanne Maman, Leonard Fein, Barry Novak, Joel Rosenberg, Carol Kur, Bill and Isa Aron, Naomi Katz Mintz, Anne Fishman, Stephen P. Cohen, Robin Maradie, Moshe Waldoks, Anne Pomerantz, and Leon Wieseltier.
    Nancy Grubbs typed the manuscript twice and was a strong support throughout.
    Special thanks to the members of the Joint Distribution Committee.
    Finally, I owe a great debt to the hundreds of marijuana users who contributed anonymously to this book through their conversations and letters. This is really their book as well as mine, and I thank them for sharing their ideas and experiences, first with me—and now with you.

Introduction