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To Smoke Or Not To Smoke

Every age has its peculiar folly and if Charles Mackay, the author of the 19th century classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds were alive today he would surely see \”cannabinophobia\” as a popular delusion along with the \”tulipmania\” and \”witch hunts\” of earlier ages. I believe that we are now at the cusp of this particular popular delusion which to date has been responsible for the arrest of over twelve million US citizens.

I also believe that future historians will look at this epoch and recognize it as another instance of the \” madness of crowds. \” Many readers of this web site have already arrived at this understanding, but for some of us enlightenment came later than we would have wished. Consistent with the goal of my Uses of Marijuana Project of encouraging users to write about their involvement with cannabis, I thought I would share something of my cannabis enlightenment, a story that now spans a third of a century.

In every life there occur seminal events that modify the seemingly established trajectory of one’s personal history. For me, three of the four big ones were, in chronological order, the decision to go to medical school, the extraordinary good fortune of meeting the woman I married, and the gift of children. The fourth was my improbable encounter with cannabis, an event that divided my life into two eras; the before cannabis era, and the cannabis era (my son David refers to these phases of my life as BC and AD for before cannabis and after dope).

My cannabis era began to unfold in 1967. As the senior author of a book on schizophrenia, I found myself with what I estimated would be two to three relatively free months before my co-authors would finish their chapters. Because I had become concerned that so many young people were using the terribly dangerous drug marijuana, I decided to use the time to review the medical literature so that I could write a reasonably objective and scientifically sound paper on the harmfulness of this substance.

Young people were ignoring the warnings of the government, but perhaps some would seriously consider a well-documented review of the available data. So I began my systematic review of the medical and scientific literature bearing on the toxicity — mental and physical — of marijuana. It never occurred to me then that there were other dimensions of this drug that warranted exploration. During my initial foray into this literature I discovered, to my astonishment, that I had to seriously question what I believed I knew about cannabis.

As I began to appreciate that what I thought I understood was largely based on myths, old and new, I realized how little my training in science and medicine had protected me against this misinformation. I had become not just a victim of a disinformation campaign, but because I was a physician, one of its agents as well. Believing that I should share my skepticism about the established understanding of marijuana, I wrote a long paper which was published in the now-defunct International Journal of Psychiatry; a shorter version was published as the lead article in the December 1969 issue of Scientific American.

In these papers I questioned whether the almost ubiquitous belief that marijuana was an exceedingly harmful drug was supported by substantial data to be found in the scientific and medical literature. While there was little reaction to the paper published in the psychiatric journal, there was much interest in the Scientific American article. Within a week of the appearance of the article, I received a visit from the associate director of the Harvard University Press, who suggested that I consider writing a book on marijuana.

I found the idea both attractive and daunting. The subject was worthy of a book-length exposition, and I would have a reason to deepen my exploration of this fascinating and harmful misunderstanding. And there was another reason, perhaps the most compelling of all. The one aspect of my work that interested my twelve-year old son Danny was my study of marijuana. His illness began in July of 1967, just about the time I had decided to learn about the dangers of marijuana. He was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, and his prognosis was, of course, grave.

He was both excited and pleased when I told him that I had decided to write a book on marijuana. A few weeks later I learned that the Board of Syndics of the Harvard University Press had rejected the book proposal as too controversial. Until that moment I was unaware of the existence of this board which must approve every book published by the Press. An image of the Rembrandt painting \”Syndics of the Cloth Guild\” came to mind: a group of serious-looking, longhaired men sitting around a table, exuding caution and conservatism.

I was disappointed but not surprised that they rejected this proposal; it was the first instance of academic resistance to my work in this area. I could have signed on immediately with a trade publisher that offered the prospect of selling more books. But I believed that a conservative, prestigious press would lend more credibility to a book that promised to be quite controversial. The director of the press was undaunted; he believed that he could persuade the Syndics to reverse their decision. And so he did. It turned out to be a much bigger project than I had anticipated.

I found that I had more than the medical and scientific literature to review. Because so much of the misinformation and myths about this drug had their origins in the gaudy writings of the French Romantic Literary Movement, I felt compelled to examine the works of Thophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, and other members of Le Club des Haschischins, as well as those of Bayard Taylor and Fitz Hugh Ludlow. It was fascinating to learn that much of the mythology about cannabis that was being promulgated by the US government had its origins in these writings.

It is difficult to imagine that Harry Anslinger (our first drug tsar) was directly familiar with these 19th-century authors, but clearly some of their hyperbolic descriptions of the cannabis experience, largely products of effusive imagination under the influence of copious amounts of hashish, are echoed almost a century later in the \”teachings\” of Harry Anslinger. I had come to understand that marijuana was not addicting in the usual, rather vague understanding of that word, but I certainly got hooked on learning about it.

I was fascinated by my growing understanding of how little I actually knew about this drug, and even more so by the many false beliefs I had held with such conviction. It soon dawned on me that I, like most other Americans, had been brainwashed, that I was a part of this madness of the crowd. And the more I learned about cannabis, the more it seemed to be capable of providing experiences which would be worth exploring personally sometime in the future.

In the meantime, I felt like an explorer sailing an inaccurately and inadequately mapped ocean. Where earlier cartographers had found many shoals, I found few; where others found barren and dangerous islands, I saw lands that looked increasingly interesting as I drew closer. The clearer the view, the greater the temptation to land and make a direct exploration, but I reminded myself that the point of this trip was to chart the ledges and shoals, not to explore forbidden lands to look for riches.

Long before I decided to land, more than a year after the publication of Marihuana Reconsidered in 1971, it had become inescapably clear that while marijuana was not harmless, its harmfulness lay not so much in any inherent psychopharmacological property of the drug but in the social and legal consequences of our firmly held misbeliefs. After the publication of Marihuana Reconsidered I was often asked about my personal experience with cannabis.

Some questioners were skeptical when I replied that I had never used it: \” What, you wrote a book about marijuana and you never experienced it! \” The implication was that inexperience would invalidate my claim to expertise. I would defensively respond, \”I have written a book on schizophrenia and I have never experienced that. \” It was not until some years later that I realized that there was validity to this criticism of my lack of personal experience with cannabis.

Especially in the later phases of this research and writing, I had flirted with the idea of trying marijuana, not because I believed at that time that it would inform my work, but because it appeared to be such an interesting experience. I decided against it out of fear that it would compromise my goal of producing as objective a statement as I could. Of course the further I pursued the subject the more I realized how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to produce a truly neutral and objective statement.

But I was not about to add to this difficulty by personally exploring marijuana at this time even though the temptation to do so became greater as I learned more about it. I had another reason for postponing personal experience with cannabis. If the book were successful, I expected to be called as an expert witness before legislative committees and in courtrooms. I correctly anticipated that some of my interrogators would want to know whether I had ever used cannabis, and I wanted to be able to deny it so as to preserve at least the appearance of objectivity.

In the beginning I did not believe this question unfair. It seemed to me to be no different from other questions about my credentials. But I soon learned that when it was asked, it was almost always put by a legislator, lawyer, judge, or media person who was hostile to the suggestion that cannabis might not be as harmful as he firmly believed. It became increasingly clear that the question was asked, not in the spirit of learning more about the context of my understanding of this drug, but rather in the hope that I would answer affirmatively and that this would discredit my testimony.

More than a year after the publication of the book I was testifying before a legislative committee when a senator who had already revealed his hostility asked, \”Doctor, have you ever used marijuana? \” Perhaps because I was irritated by the hostility reflected in his previous questions and his sneering tone of voice, I replied, \”Senator, I will be glad to answer that question if you will first tell me whether if I answer your question affirmatively, you will consider me a more or less credible witness? The senator, visibly upset by my response, angrily told me that I was being impertinent and left the hearing room.

That was the moment that I decided that the time had come. Later that week Betsy and I went to a party in Cambridge where we knew that some guests would be smoking marijuana. Ever since a review of Marihuana Reconsidered had appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review (under the banner, \”The best dope on pot so far\”) people had been offering us marijuana, and we had been politely and often a little apologetically declining it.

Those guests who knew of our previously resolute abstemiousness were surprised when we decided to join them. We were cautious, as cannabis-naive people should be, as we inhaled our first tokes ever. Shortly afterward my first and only unpleasant cannabis experience began. A lit joint was passed around a small circle and we took turns inhaling big, noisy puffs and holding them in for a few seconds. One by one the others said they had had enough and waved off the passing joint; they were high, or at least claimed to be.

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