To Smoke or not to Smoke: A Cannabis OdysseyBy Lester Grinspoon,
MD http://www.marijuana-uses.com/ 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 that 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 ThÈophile 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. I asked Betsy, "Do you feel anything?" "Not a
thing!" "Neither do
I." We were
disappointed. We had been looking forward to this initiation for several
years. I had come to expect so much from the experience, from the
magical possibilities of this subtly altered state of consciousness --
and now nothing! I began to wonder; was this all there was to it? Was my
acceptance of the claims of cannabis aficionados just as naive as my
earlier belief in the propaganda disseminated by the Harry Anslinger
truth squad and its descendants? Could it be true that all I had
accomplished in over three years of intensive research was to swing the
pendulum of my gullibility from one extreme to the other? Soon my
disappointment gave way to a palpable level of anxiety. Was it possible
that I had spent all this time studying what must be for some people an
enormously persuasive placebo? Would not the author of a book that took
as a basic premise that marijuana is a real drug be considered
fraudulent? I tried to reassure myself. I reminded myself that I had,
after all, carefully explained to the reader that many if not most
people do not get high the first time they use marijuana. At that time I
believed that the anxiety I experienced that night was generated by a
precipitous loss of confidence in my newly arrived-at understanding of
cannabis, an unshakable belief that after more than three years of hard
work, I had gotten it wrong and as a consequence had misled a lot of
people -- certainly sufficient grounds for a good dose of anxiety. It
was not until much later, both chronologically and in my experience with
"stoned thinking", that I began to question that explanation.
It occurred to me only years later while I was smoking cannabis that I
might have actually achieved a high that first night, an "anxiety
high," not the kind I had expected. This was certainly not
impossible; a small percentage of people who use cannabis for the first
time experience some degree of anxiety. There are even a few people who
always get anxious when they use marijuana. Among the Rastafarians of
Jamaica, these folks are considered slightly deviant but are
understandably excused with the expression, "He don't have a head
for ganja!" This was not a
problem with my head, for a week or so later we smoked cannabis and
again neither Betsy nor I noticed any change in our states of
consciousness that would even remotely suggest that we were high.
Thankfully, however, I was not the least bit anxious this time -- only
disappointed again. Finally, on our third attempt, we were able to reach
the promised high. Our awareness of having at last crossed the threshold
arrived gradually. The first thing I noticed, within a few minutes of
smoking, was the music; it was "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band." This music was not unfamiliar to me, as it was a favorite of
my children, who constantly filled the house with the sound of the
Beatles, the Grateful Dead and other popular rock bands of the time.
They frequently urged me to get my "head out of classical music and
try listening to rock." It was impossible not to listen to rock
when they were growing up, but it was possible for me, as it was for
many parents of my generation, not to hear it. On that evening I did
"hear" it. It was for me a rhythmic implosion, a fascinating
new musical experience! It was the opening of new musical vistas, which
I have with the help of my sons continued to explore to this very day. A
year later, I related this story to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with whom
I was having dinner. (I was to appear the next day as an expert witness
at the Immigration and Naturalization Service hearings that Attorney
General John Mitchell had engineered as a way of getting them out of the
country on marijuana charges after they became involved in anti-Vietnam
War activities.) I told John of this experience and how cannabis
appeared to make it possible for me to "hear" his music for
the first time in much the same way that Allen Ginsberg reported that he
had "seen" CÈzanne for the first time when he purposely
smoked cannabis before setting out for the Museum of Modern Art. John
was quick to reply that I had experienced only one facet of what
marijuana could do for music, that he thought it could be very helpful
for composing and making music as well as listening to it. In my next
recollection of that evening, Betsy and I and another couple were
standing in the kitchen in a circle, each of us in turn taking bites out
of a Napoleon. There was much hilarity as each bite forced the viscous
material between the layers to move laterally and threaten to drip on
the floor. It seemed a riotous way to share a Napoleon. But the most
memorable part of the kitchen experience was the taste of the Napoleon.
None of us had ever, "in our whole lives", eaten such an
exquisite Napoleon! "Mary, where in the world did you find these
Napoleons?" "Oh, I've had their Napoleons before and they
never tasted like this!" It was gradually dawning on me that
something unusual was happening; could it be that we were experiencing
our first cannabis high? We drove home very
cautiously. In fact, one of the observations I made on the way home was
how comfortable I, an habitual turnpike left-laner, was in the
right-hand lane with all those cars zipping past me. It seemed like a
very long time before we arrived home. Not that we were in a rush -- the
ride was very pleasant. Time passed even more slowly between our arrival
and our going to bed, but once we did, we knew with certainty that we
had finally been able to achieve a marijuana high. And that marked the
beginning of the experiential facet of my cannabis era, a development
that furthered my education about the many uses of this remarkable drug. I was 44 years old
in1972 when I experienced this first marijuana high. Because I have
found it both so useful and benign I have used it ever since. I have
used it as a recreational drug, as a medicine, and as an enhancer of
some capacities. Almost everyone knows something of its usefulness as a
recreational substance, growing numbers of people are becoming familiar
with its medical utility, but
only practiced cannabis users appreciate some of the other ways in which
it can be useful. It has been so useful to me that I cannot help but
wonder how much difference it would have made had I begun to use it at a
younger age. Because it has been so helpful in arriving at some
important decisions and understandings, it is tempting to think that it
might have helped me to avoid some "before cannabis era" bad
decisions. In fact, now, when I have an important problem to solve or
decision to make, I invariably avail myself of the opportunity to think
about it both stoned and straight. I cannot possibly
convey the breadth of things it helps me to appreciate, to think about,
to gain new insights into. But I would like to share several not too
personal instances. For example, let me tell you about the worst career
choice I have ever made; it was my decision to apply to the Boston
Psychoanalytic Institute as a candidate for training in psychoanalysis.
I began this training, which was enormously costly in both time and
money, in 1960 and graduated seven years later. Although I developed
some skepticism about certain facets of psychoanalytic theory during
training, it was not sufficient to dull the enthusiasm with which I
began treating patients psychoanalytically in 1967 (coincidentally, the
same year I began to study cannabis). It was not until about the mid
'70s that my emerging skepticism about the therapeutic effectiveness of
psychoanalysis began to get uncomfortable. This discomfort was catalyzed
by cannabis. On those evenings when I smoke marijuana it provides, among
other things, an invitation to review significant ideas, events and
interactions of the day; my work with patients is invariably on that
agenda. This cannabis review-of-the-day is almost always self-critical,
often harshly so, and the parameters within which the critique occurs
are inexplicably enlarged. My psychotherapy patients, patients who sat
opposite me and who could share eye contact and free verbal exchange,
always appeared to be making better progress than my psychoanalytic
patients. I was generally satisfied with my work with the former, and
invariably at first impatient and later unhappy with the lack of
progress made by patients on the couch. There is little doubt that it
was the cumulative effect of these stoned self-critiques that finally,
in 1980, compelled me to make the decision not to accept any new
psychoanalytic patients. The subsequent decision to resign from the
Boston Psychoanalytic Institute was very difficult, a little like
deciding to get a divorce after more than a decade of marriage. But I
have no doubt that it was the only way I could deal with this growing
discomfort and rectify what was now clearly seen as a mistake. Some of
my former psychoanalyst colleagues might believe, among other things,
that I have merely traded my involvement in what I considered a
macro-delusional system for immersion in an inverse micro version. Such
a possibility notwithstanding, I am indebted to cannabis for the help it
provided me in achieving the clarity necessary to arrive at this most
difficult decision. Cannabis can also be used as a catalyst to the generation of new ideas.
Experienced cannabis users know that under its influence new ideas flow
more readily than they do in the straight state. They also understand
that some are good and others are bad ideas; sorting them out is best
done while straight. In the absence of an agenda, the ideas are
generated randomly or as close or distant associations to conversation,
reading, or some perceptual experience. It is sometimes worthwhile to
have a stoned go at trying to solve a particular problem.
An illustration comes to mind. In 1980, during my tenure as Chairperson
of the Scientific Program Committee of the American Psychiatric
Association (APA) I "invented" and then edited the first three
volumes of the Annual Review of Psychiatry, a large book which is
still published yearly by the APA. Mindful of how much money this annual
publication was earning for the APA, the chief of our sub-department of
psychiatry asked me to put my "thinking-cap" on and come up
with a way for the Harvard Department of Psychiatry to supplement its
shrinking budget. Taking his request seriously, I smoked that night for
the express purpose of trying to generate relevant ideas. Within days,
at a meeting in the Dean's office, it was agreed that the idea I arrived
at that evening would be pursued -- the publication of a monthly mental
health letter. The first edition of The Harvard Mental Health Letter
appeared in July 1984 and it soon achieved considerable success as an
esteemed mental health publication and a steady source of income to the
Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry. Would the idea have
come or come as easily in a straight state? Maybe. All through the
seemingly endless heated discourse on cannabis in this country over the
last three decades, little has been said or written about its many uses.
The overwhelming preponderance of funding, research, writing, political
activity, and legislation have been centered on the question of its
harmfulness. The 65 year old debate, which has relatively recently
included discussion of its usefulness and safety as a medicine, has
never been concerned with its non-medicinal uses; it is always limited
to the question of how harmful it is and how a society should deal with
the harm it is alleged to cause. It is estimated that 76 million
Americans have used cannabis and more than 10 million use it regularly.
They use it in the face of risks that range from opprobrium to
imprisonment. From the time I began my studies of marijuana, 12 million
citizens of this country have been arrested for marijuana offenses. The
number of annual marijuana arrests is increasing, and in 2000 over
734,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges, 88 percent of them
for possession. Because the government allows confiscation of property
in drug cases, many have lost valued possessions ranging from
automobiles to homes. Most have to undertake expensive legal defenses
and some have served or will serve time in prison. Unless we are
prepared to believe that all these people are driven by uncontrollable
"Reefer Madness" craving, we must conclude that they find
something in the experience attractive and useful. And yet there is very
little open exploration of these uses with the growing exception of its
value as a medicine. Even here, government officials want to mute the
discussion out of a fear expressed by the chief of the Public Health
Service when in 1992 he discontinued the only legal avenue to medicinal
marijuana: "If it is perceived that the Public Health Service is
going around giving marijuana to folks, there would be a perception that
this stuff can't be so bad... it gives a bad signal." The
government has, until very recently, refused to knowledge that cannabis
has any value, even medicinal, but there are millions of citizens who
have discovered through their own experience that it has a large variety
of uses they consider valuable and that the health costs are minimal. This large population of marijuana users is a subculture, one that has
been present in this country since the 1960s. Three decades ago it was
an open, vocal, active, and articulate culture on and off the campus.
Today it is silent and largely hidden because most users,
understandably, do not want to stand up and be counted. They have more
than the law to fear. Urine testing is now a fact of life in corporate
America; a positive test result can lead, at the very least, to a stint
in a "drug treatment" program, and at most, to the loss of a
job, career destruction, even imprisonment. Users are very mindful of
this minefield, and most find ways around it. Even more pervasive and in
some ways more pernicious is the stigmatization attached to cannabis
use. Young people often experience little of this, at least among their
friends. But as they grow older and move into increasingly responsible
and visible positions they become much more guarded. Many believe,
correctly, that colleagues would regard them as deviant if they knew.
This stigmatization is abetted by the media, which have created and
perpetrated a stereotyped image of "potheads" as young,
hirsute, slovenly dressed ne'er-do-wells or disreputable, irresponsible,
and socially marginal hedonists who use marijuana only to hang out and
party. One reason for the fierce resistance to marijuana is the fear
that it will somehow taint middle-class society with the
"pothead" culture. There is no denying
that many, especially young people, use marijuana primarily for
"partying and hanging out" in the same way that many more use
beer. And most non-users, until they become aware of its medical value,
believe that smoking to party and hang out pretty much defines the
limits of its usefulness. This stereotype is powerful, and reactions
ranging from puzzlement to outrage greet claims that this party drug
could be useful as medicine or for any other purposes. People who make
claims about its usefulness run the risk of being derided as vestigial
hippies. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that most people
who use cannabis do so behind drawn curtains, alone or with others who
share some appreciation of its value. It is unfortunate that those who, from personal experience, are aware of
its usefulness are so reluctant to be public about it. I believe it
would be good for the country if more people in business, academic and
professional worlds were known to be marijuana users. The government has
been able to pursue its policies of persecution and prosecution largely
because of the widespread false belief that cannabis smokers are either
irresponsible and socially marginal people or adolescents who
"experiment", learn their lesson, and abandon all use of the
drug. That lie is unfortunately perpetuated when those who know better
remain silent. It's time to let the truth come out. Just as the gay and
lesbian out-of-the-closet movement has done so much to decrease the
level of homophobia in this country, when the many people of substance
and accomplishment who use cannabis "come out", it will
contribute much to the diminution of cannabinophobia. Not many well-known
people are identified as users of cannabis. A few politicians have been
outed by their enemies (one went so far as to claim that he did not
inhale), and some would-be political appointments have failed because of
a history of marijuana use. Occasionally a screen star, musician or
professional athlete is arrested for possession. Aside from Allen
Ginsberg, some popular musicians, and a few notables from the Beat and
hippie movements, few people in the public eye have voluntarily
acknowledged cannabis use. Except for one well-known scientist, the
physicist Richard Feynman, academics have been most cautious. Feynman,
by courageously acknowledging his ongoing use of marijuana, won the
respect and appreciation of many and the enmity of others. Fear of
"coming out" is, of course, not without foundation. As long as
the present stereotyped understanding of marijuana use and its effects
continues to prevail, anyone who acknowledges using it will risk being
taken less seriously from then on. It is thought that potheads could not
possibly be considered mature, serious, responsible, and credible. Yet
only those who actually use cannabis can teach us how useful it is. There was a time not so long ago when it was generally assumed that any
use of marijuana was "merely recreational." This was certainly
true at the time I wrote Marihuana Reconsidered. The chapter on
marijuana as medicine (The Place of Cannabis and Medicine) was concerned
with past (19th and early 20th century) and potential uses; there was no
overt and little covert use of cannabis as a medicine at that time. Now,
there are many thousands of patients who use cannabis medicinally. And
as the ranks of these patients grow, so does the number of people who
observe for themselves how relatively benign this substance is.
Seventy-four percent of Americans presently believe that cannabis should
be made available as a medicine; very few people would have held this
belief in 1971. Currently it is generally thought that there are two
generic categories of marijuana use: recreational and medical. But in
fact many uses do not fit into these categories without stretching their
boundaries to the point of distortion; they fall into a third category,
one that is more diverse and for that reason difficult to label. It
includes such disparate uses as the magnification of pleasure in a host
of activities ranging from dining to sex, the increased ability to hear
music and see works of art, and the ways in which it appears to catalyze
new ideas, insights and
creativity, to name a few. Furthermore, at its edges, which
are fuzzy, there is some conflation with both medicine and recreation.
Yet, the preponderance of these uses falls into this broad and
distinctive third category that I call enhancement. This is the class of
uses which is generally the least appreciated or understood by
non-cannabis users. It is also the case that some people who use or who
have used marijuana may not be aware of some if not most of the
enhancement possibilities. One category of
cannabis utility that we have studied is its usefulness as a medicine.
Because there is not at this time a systematic clinical literature on
the medicinal uses of cannabis, James B. Bakalar and I asked patients to
share their experiences with cannabis as a medicine for our book,
Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine (Yale University Press, 1993, 1997).
We supplemented these anecdotal patient accounts with our own clinical
experience and what we could glean from the medical literature.
Anecdotal evidence is not as persuasive as that from double-blind
placebo controlled studies, the more scientifically sound modern medical
approach to the safety and efficacy of new therapeutics. As the results
of such studies become available we may be compelled to modify our
estimate of the clinical usefulness of cannabis. At this time, however,
it is difficult to imagine that future studies will subtract much from
the clinical experience-driven perception that cannabis is a remarkably
versatile medicine with relatively little toxicity. It is my intention
to roughly follow the same format in the Uses of Marijuana Project
(www.marijuana-uses.com). While I will attempt to illuminate the various
uses of cannabis through literary accounts and by sharing some of my own
experiences, the prime source of what I hope will be a fairly
comprehensive understanding of the uses of this versatile drug will come
from contemporary users. Some will identify themselves; others will
prefer to remain anonymous for reasons that have already been noted.
Either way, I hope to present enough information about the witness to
put his or her account into a meaningful context. Unlike medicinal use,
which will eventually be fitted with scientific costume, an
understanding of those uses which fall into the category of enhancement
will probably always be based on anecdotal accounts; it is unlikely that
marijuana's capacity for the enhancement of sexual pleasure, for
example, will ever be the subject of a modern scientific (double-blind
placebo-controlled) study. However, if this ethnographic method is
successful we should be able to provide a reasonably proximate picture
of the varieties and value of cannabis use in contemporary society. And
in so doing, we cannabis users can make a significant contribution to
the demise of cannabinophobia, one of our age's most damaging popular
delusions. In the meantime,
Betsy and I are gradually being given the opportunity to explore another
dimension of the ways in which cannabis can be valuable; we are
discovering its usefulness in the task of achieving reconciliation with
the aging process, including coming to terms with the inevitable
physical and emotional aches, deficits and losses. Cannabis also
enhances our appreciation of the time we have, now that we are both
emeritus, to enjoy our children, grandchildren and friends, literature,
music and travel, and our daily walks in the New England woods. Of still
more importance, it helps us to realize the wisdom of Robert Browning's
words, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be..."
http://www.marijuana-uses.com/
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