11. Social Attitudes of Users

K. Berntsen, Youth Clinic, Copenhagen.

In a British TV-play named 'Bartleby', the principal character is a young man who has got a job as a bookkeeper in a small firm. Whenever the manager asks the young man to come in and discuss things etc., he answers 'I prefer not to' or 'I would rather not'.

I wonder why this sentence 'I prefer not to' comes into my hear all the times when at home in Copenhagen I started to think of what I should like to point out here concerning the topic of social attitudes and life style of cannabis users.

One of the reasons for this 'I prefer not to' may be found especially in one of the topics which I am expected to cover in my paper: 'A discussion of the social attitudes manifested by cannabis users including the extent to which an identifiable life-style can be designated'.

My point is that maybe it is a wrong way to set up the problem. We take it as a fact that the cannabis user has special social attitudes and a special life-style. We put the emphasis on the cannabis use. The answer to this is of course that when we meet to a cannabis conference this is the main topic, cannabis is our starting point.

I myself followed the line when I wrote my very short draft notes in which I said that marihuana and hashish are still mostly used by young people who are in opposition to the welfare society, against the ECC, who are trying alternative ways of life, etc.

If we look at the many researches in the different countries, which during the last 5 to 10 years have tried to find out the numbers of youngsters who have been offered, tried, regularly used cannabis or hashish, the results show that up till now are that they account for an increasing percentage of the investigated populations. But it is important to bear in mind that the large majority has only been trying or experimenting with marihuana.

From my point of view the development in the future concerning this problem can go two ways. The first one, and there is every probability that this will be the result, is that the numbers of individuals who have tried marihuana will increase. If so, that means that more and more so-called 'normal' people will belong to the group so that the differences which are still found between the groups 'ever' and 'never' tried will disappear completely, and the factor 'marihuana' cannot be used as an indicator.

It seems perhaps stupid to mention that the other possibility is that the numbers of users decrease in the future. The reason for mentioning it is that this will only happen in my country at least if we continue with our liberal attitude towards cannabis. It must be caused by a rejection of the drug by the children and the youngsters themselves because they find other drugs more interesting for instance alcohol, or make a movement against any drugs at all.

To-day there are in Denmark a large number of people, and not only young people, who believe that it is legal to possess and smoke, eat or drink marihuana and hashish. This is rather interesting, especially when one looks upon some legal facts about cannabis, and it shows us at the same time a double-sided moral principle.

In a special law about narcotic drugs, the drugs are grouped in two categories. One category must not be allowed in the country because they present special danger due to their intoxicating qualities. Other drugs must be allowed, but only used for medical and scientific purposes.

In the first mentioned group one finds heroin, raw opium and cannabis. It is a paradox that a drug like hashish, which is the easiest available and cheapest drug, and - as time goes on - the drug that is considered the least dangerous drug, is from a legal point of view considered so dangerous it is not allowed to be in the country.

Bat the confusion becomes greater when we look at the instructions given by the general attorney concerning the work of the police: 'In general there will be no reason to start an investigation concerning liability to punishment for possession when the suspicion solely relates to own consumption of the drug. The possession of hashish or marihuana in small quantities will only be followed by warnings.

The consequence of this strategy is, as mentioned before, that many people consider consumption of hashish and marihuana as legal. The fact is that consumption of this and of other drugs is decriminalized which, from my point of view, is a sensible and good thing.

We can compare and contrast the situation in Denmark with that in other countries. Whilst Holland adopts a similar policy, some countries have higher penalties. For instance, in Egypt capital punishment is the maximum penalty for smuggling.

Going back to the special topic: social attitudes and life-styles of users, I will make the following comments:

As mentioned, I think that we will find less and less special extreme kinds of life-styles and social attitudes among the future users of cannabis products. The smoking will not, to the same extent as previously, be used as a means to oppose against adult authority, in order to demonstrate independency, or to revolt.

It has already its own norms, its own ways to be taken, together in groups, in week-ends, as positive elements when listening to music, etc. One also sees that for certain active political youth groups the hashish smoking is decreasing because it makes the participants more passive and disinterested in the political work.

But all that I have said up till now does not mean that I think that there are special problems which have relation to the use of marihuana and hashish. And I shall mention two categories of youngsters, whom I know from my daily work with drug addicts and juveniles, with other problems.

The first category is that of the drug addicts in treatment. Even when they stop injecting, they may often continue with very heavy use of non-opiates, such as cigarettes, coffee and alcohol, which are all legal, and cannabis. All drugs can be used and can be misused, and it is important to see how heavy users of any drug function.

The second category is that of the 'dropout' who takes no part in the educational system or in the normal social life, and prefers to live on a minimum of economic resources. They may smoke cannabis excessively. But cannabis is only one factor among many others, and I believe that the other factors, social and psychological, are of much greater importance.

In conclusion, I feel that we should continue to investigate the potential of cannabis and of other drugs for physical and biological harm. In relation to social and psychological research:

1. I prefer to give up talking about the cannabis user as a special sort of person.

2. I prefer to find out how we could influence the attitudes of legislators and of the people who still believe that the drug problem can be solved by legal measures. Just look at the United States.
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3. I prefer to believe that we will look at all the other more important factors for human well-being, such as socio-economic and psychological factors which are so obviously essential.

DISCUSSION OF PAPERS BY MS BERNTSEN, MS KOSVINER AND DR LEUW

THE CHANGING LEVELS OF USE

There was discussion about the rate of growth of cannabis use, and of the very limited evidence available to say whether cannabis use was in fact still increasing. Dr Hawks pointed out that 'in those areas where there is much higher prevalence there may be a plateau effect. They do go up to a point, but whether or not surveys in two points of time show a rise depends very much on the time the comparisons are made.'

Mr Hastleton suggested that church attendance is an absolute bar from experimentation with cannabis. One can set up limits for consumption by looking at the distribution of conservatism in the culture. He also suggested that one should be suspicious of research reports of percentages of ever-users giving up use; admitting to ever-use would seem less dangerous to the respondent from admitting to current use.

Dr Miles reported that his longitudinal data indicated a tendency among some heavy users to give up for a while, to try Zen and other non-drug activities, and then to go back to cannabis but to use it as a more moderate rate. Such changes have implications for 'plateau' estimates.

Mr Dorn suggested that if one asked teenagers with nicotine experience whether they were current nicotine users, many of those who in fact will go on to become regular users claim to have 'given up' at that time. The implication for surveys of use of marijuana is that asking whether the respondent currently used or had given up is inadequate as a measure of future use. The National Commission on Marijuana's use of data in this way was questionable. 'What you have to ask people is not whether they regard themselves as current users, but whether they have a positive intention of refusing any future offer of cannabis.'

NORMALISATION OF CANNABIS USE

Dr Leuw saw that the data presented by Kosviner was in line with research done in Holland. In Holland, cannabis use was no longer deviant, and sex, religion and a degree of urbanisation no longer clearly differentiated user from non-user. Nor did lifestyle or attitudinal attributes, and nor was it any longer true that cannabis had a central or core function for social groups. 'In terms of the subculture, cannabis use has been vulgarised. Once straight people began to smoke cannabis, it wasn't something for the sub-culture to be proud of. Heavy use may still be a sub-cultural thing, but it is less of a core element in it'.

Ms Kosviner agreed that it is no longer central as an activity, and so it is no longer possible to try to explain it as a unitary phenomenon. Dr Miles said that another change was not so much in the phenomenon of cannabis use, but in the attitude of the scientific community to cannabis research: two years ago, Dr Leuw had been interrupted in the middle of giving a paper at a Conference at Amsterdam by the Chairman, but today the
scientific establishment was able to accept such research results.

Ms Mott suggested that there was evidence from other UK surveys to suggest that there is a social class factor in cannabis (more likely in middle-class) and that this would not show up clearly in college populations because of their relatively homogenous social class compositions.

Dr Rubin pointed out that in Jamaica it is the non-cannabis user who is deviant. Whilst cannabis use may be or have been part of a general constellation of nonconforming behaviour in the USA and UK, this is not the case in other cultures.

Mr Hasleton reported that Australian surveys of urban universities also find ever-usership around 30 per cent. In Australia, cannabis is freely available, and he suggested that availability is not a major limiting factor in levels of consumption. Dr Hindmarch, quoting a 1972 study of a school population stressed that the economics of drug use, such as the disappearance of small 'deals' of cannabis, led to some users giving it up.

Mr Hasleton and Dr Leuw asked Ms Berntsen about her clinic staff's use of cannabis. Ms Berntsen suggested that the staff coming into work in the drug agencies were now less interested in cannabis than a few years ago. They might smoke as much, but there was less excitement about it. Mr Berntsen mentioned that as cannabis smoking became more common in places of tertiary education, especially in social science students, so the numbers of young social scientists starting work who smoke cannabis must rise. Although some of her staff might smoke cannabis, and although the clients might also, her staff were forbidden to smoke cannabis with the clients.

Dr Edwards suggested that looking at the evidence on alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis use, one could speculate that different variables might best explain different parts of the consumption curve. Sociological explanations are useful for establishing the meanings of experimentation and light use, whilst psychological explanations may have a higher power for relatively heavy use irrespective of time or culture.

FUTURE SURVEYS

According to Dr Cameron 'What we're ultimately interested in is the extent of problems associated with drug-using behaviour and trying to reduce the seriousness and extent of those problems. Therefore we need incidence figures, figures of heavy use, and figures of problem use, through time with different cohorts'. In other words, longitudinal samples with measures of level and consequence of use will in future be more valuable than cross-sectional surveys at one point in time.