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High in High Places part 3 of 3 Outrageous
Fortune Partly
because of their reverence for pot and partly because they believe they
use marijuana responsibly, many adult pot smokers feel they suffer
unfair persecution and are outraged at what they consider the
ridiculousness--and, for some, harmfulness--of government policy.
"I think that it is criminal what our government is doing to hemp
smokers," Herbert asserts. Randy, 35,
a self-described "weekend dabbler" with marijuana and software
writer for a Silicon Valley company, asserts, "It's not as strong
as alcohol, it doesn't cause violent or anti-social behavior. The
government has no place legislating it. Hell, I don't even drink. I just
have one vice and that's smoking pot." Feelings
of unjust persecution have lead some users to speculate on the origins
of the current pot prohibition: "The government in combination with
the Mafia and the alcohol lobby will never permit legalization of
marijuana and it's a damn shame," writes one 49-year-old mother of
four. Outrage
increases when users have experienced what they consider marijuana's
medical benefits. Because they use recreationally, medical benefits are
often discovered as a side effect, sort of an extra-added bonus. In some
cases, users have introduced parents and spouses suffering from cancer
and other illnesses to pot, and to their amusement now find themselves
supplying their 80-year-old mothers with the occasional bag. "My
father would die if he found out," says Rose, who gives marijuana
to her bed-bound mother. Rose also uses marijuana to control her own
asthma. One young
woman says she smokes to forestall "very bad menstrual cramps. It
works like a dream. And I think it should be legalized." Eric
Harlow, 61, introduced his wife to marijuana. Suffering from kidney
cancer, she uses marijuana to control the discomfort of radiation
treatment. "She has found relief in the prevention of vomiting, in
increase of appetite and pain reduction. Physicians can't prescribe
marijuana," Harlow says, "and that's a crime." Getting
High Gets No Respect Marijuana,
as currently defined in hemp debates, is confined to three categories:
hemp for industry, marijuana for medicine, and pot for recreational
use--the last of which is considered least useful in arguments for
reform of marijuana laws. Yet some argue that if the rational,
responsible use of marijuana were addressed, the hemp advocacy movement
in general would bound forward. Lester
Grinspoon, a psychiatrist at the Harvard School of Medicine, is the
latest high-status professional to turn pro-pot, much to the horror of
the anti-drug crowd, which prefers to paint the marijuana reform
movement as composed primarily of hippies. Grinspoon, once a detractor
of pot, has become a major proponent of marijuana-law reform. He is
author of the landmark tome Marihuana Reconsidered and has recently
co-authored with attorney and Harvard lecturer James Bakalar Marihuana:
The Forbidden Medicine and an article published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association pleading for fellow physicians to speak out
in favor of medical marijuana use. Grinspoon
had planned another work, on the use of pot by artists and
professionals, but says he's been busy with the release of Forbidden
Medicine. He did, however, conduct some related interviews. One problem,
Grinspoon says, is that "recreational use is too general a
term" for what people do with marijuana. "There are people who
write, and musicians who find it terribly important to their work,
people who believe that some of their best ideas come from smoking
marijuana. It's difficult because we're pigeonholed into the terms
'recreational' use and 'medical' use." As a
physician, however, Grinspoon worries that a shift in the terms of
debate from medical use to recreational or other use might be premature.
"I'd be a little concerned about that," he admits, adding that
his main concern is getting marijuana into the hands of patients. But it may
be too late to restrict the marijuana debate to pot's puritanical uses.
Anti-drug warriors have already raised suspicion about the motives of
medical marijuana activists. The highly visible Michigan Office of Drug
Control Policy published in a paper titled "The Marijuana as
Medicine Scam" that "the marijuana as medicine issue is a
carefully orchestrated campaign by an organized and well-financed
pro-drug culture lobby, primarily supported by aging hippies, lawyers
and marijuana users who are imposing a cruel hoax on sick and dying
people to gain support for their drug of choice for selfish personal
use." Some
believe the smoke might clear if those who smoked marijuana to get
stoned fought as actively for the reform of marijuana laws as those who
claim hemp will save the world. Americans who think pot smokers are
mostly "aging hippies" might change their minds if they knew
that their bosses, co-workers, dentists, stockbrokers and attorneys
smoke pot, and do fine. "I
think there's a parallel there to homosexuality," Grinspoon notes
of stereotypes surrounding marijuana users. Being gay, he observes,
became much more acceptable "when professional, working people came
out of the closet. They demonstrated that people can be gay and be
perfectly respectable citizens. That corrected the old, abused
stereotype. Until people are really ready to stand up and be counted,
marijuana will continue to have a stigma." Ironically,
it is this stigma that stymies the efforts of those who push hemp for
paper, hemp for clothing, hemp for fuel and hemp for medicine. Dr. Eric
Voth, anti-drug crusader for the International Drug Strategy Institute,
penned a letter to Dr. Grinspoon in 1994 attacking his efforts on behalf
of medical marijuana. The letter closed with: "I have often mused
about whether you actually smoke marijuana, how long you have smoked
marijuana, and how much you smoke. I am quite interested in the answer
to this question." Voth implies that if Grinspoon were a marijuana
user his work and stature on the subject would go up in a cloud of
smoke. Some argue
that one step in the hemp advocacy movement is to overcome the
countercultural stigma associated with marijuana by initiating a wave of
"outings." Americans don't have to be afraid that marijuana
will permeate our society, they say. It already has. Smoking
Out Back The
obvious drawback to confessing marijuana use is admission of
criminality--although penalties for casual use in California are mild.
Possession of an ounce or less of pot is a misdemeanor. Growers face
felony charges, and some of the smokers I spoke with do grow their own.
Still, California courts are funneling busted dope-growers into
diversion programs which offer pot criminals drug-counseling classes in
exchange for cleared records. Despite
their enthusiasm to have their say in this article, however, most
professional pot smokers I interviewed were adamant that they retain
their anonymity. They report that co-workers and associates are not
aware of--and in some cases would condemn--their marijuana use. They
fear social stigma, the government and losing their jobs. "I would
be mortified if confidentiality is not absolutely insured," wrote
one manager in an email from a Sunnyvale corporation. The
extremely cautious will only call from pay phones and Frederick insisted
we meet in person. Concerns are expressed about email messages that
might be seen by superiors. Some mention their company's drug-testing
programs: "My company now enforces urine testing for new hires.
Though there's no current implications for existing personnel, I'd just
as soon keep my name and company out of this." People
fear they might be stigmatized as flaky. "You think, 'Well, I don't
care.' But ad clients are generally conservative and if I forgot
something, they might think it's because I get stoned," says
Mickey, who volunteers after hours for the medical marijuana movement. Baby
boomers apparently learned more from the '60s than how to roll joints.
Many harbor a profound distrust of the government and police agencies.
Mickey says when she's petitioning, she notices some people,
"always in my age group," agree with the cause but won't sign
up. "The baby boomers are real suspicious about where their names
will end up," she says. Most
respondents have not been public advocates for decriminalization, which
becomes more true as the smoker's professional status increases. Some
feel that if anyone knew they smoked, they might lose their jobs
altogether or give ammunition to competing co-workers. "To let some
people know would compromise my power structure," Frederick says.
"I don't see any reason to materialize the darts in their
quarrel." Bill, a
40-year-old marketing manager who makes $96,000 a year, uses marijuana
solely to control his attention-deficit disorder but says it's
"unnecessarily risky" to reveal his habit. "There is only
the possibility of crippling my career," he notes dryly. Bill adds
that he was a political activist in his youth and once had a frightening
run-in with the DEA. He asks, "You think I want to stand in front
of that express train?" The irony
for pot smokers is that their companies sponsor parties with fully
stocked bars, and provide beer and wine at informal gatherings. Then
there's the general nonchalance with which co-workers relate their
raucous drinking stories. Yet the current unsmoky--if
intoxicating--atmosphere makes admission difficult. "We're talking
about the most unsanctified speech of our time," says Allen St.
Pierre, deputy director at NORML. "The only worse thing you could
say is, 'I sodomize young children.' " The
Lone Tokers But some
pot smokers believe the current smoke screen on rational discussion of
marijuana use is just that, a smoke screen--and easily waved away. These
people have come trooping out of their smoky closets, heads high. Eric
Garris is a desktop publisher for a trade magazine who makes roughly
$50,000. He's also a former member of the Republican Central Committee
and a full-time, full-tilt advocate for marijuana law reform. He admits
that he smokes, and his co-workers know it. He even keeps legalization
pamphlets on his desk. "I enjoy it," he asserts as his
defense. Garris reports his 73-year-old mother has been smoking for 50
years. "I think they should sell it at the corner pharmacy,"
he says. To date,
Garris claims he has not suffered the negative backlash imagined by most
professionals. "People tend to be judgmental initially. That's why
it's important not to hide it, so that people know that someone who is
effective, that they look up to and trust, is a pothead. You can hide
who you are and hope that people will like you, or you can stand up for
who you are and what you believe in and take the heat." Mara
Leveritt, senior editor for the Arkansas Times, took coming out one step
further when she wrote an op-ed column for her paper last spring titled
"Pot's not so bad": For the past two decades, I have smoked, on average, about a joint a day. ... If long-term, regular users like myself felt free to articulate their experiences with marijuana, the walking, talking evidence we'd represent could put our marijuana laws to shame. We may not all be intellectual and moral paragons. ... On the other hand, few of us are wild-eyed marauders, genetic mutants, or drooling derelicts from whom society need protect itself. And as we get older, our lives begin to make the lies that have been broadcast about marijuana look even more ridiculous. When the
article came out, local police retaliated symbolically. They raided the
home of a local NORML officer and confiscated a pound of marijuana and
the NORML membership roster, which was later returned. Other than that? "I
got dozens and dozens of letters of support. Maybe two or three letters
in opposition. I think one advertiser stopped advertising for a while,
but then started again when nothing else seemed to happen,"
Leveritt says. She adds that as a court and police reporter for 20
years, she's seen her share of injustices perpetrated by the war on
marijuana. "Families have been destroyed. People are going to
prison for 20 years for selling marijuana while violent criminals are
paroled." Of
Leveritt's letters of support, two came from federal inmates, both of
whom pointed out that casual users have less to fear than those who
provide the means of their use. "We in prison are paying with our
lives for making it possible for responsible, hardworking Americans such
as yourself to enjoy a harmless recreational high. If more people had
the courage as you have to speak out, many of us could go back to our
lives and children. Thanks for returning the favor," one inmate
wrote. |
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