This study has repeatedly turned to subculture theory to interpret the basic findings. Each chapter has utilized empirical data to demonstrate the validity of this theory. But at this point, the findings are fragmented and may not seem too closely related to subculture theory. The present chapter attempts to formulate subculture theory more clearly by building upon the evidence presented in preceding chapters.

Specifically, it will show how the empirical data demonstrate the existence of several conduct norms and values in the drug subculture and will affirm that there are two distinct subcultures of drug use. In addition, it will suggest how drug subcultures articulate with the parent culture, the peer culture, and, most important, with the present drug laws.

There are certain methodological problems in demonstrating the existence of drug subcultures. This study examined the behavior of a social group (college students) and individuals who have high levels of illicit drug use. But using evidence from such groups to make inferences about the drug subculture displays some circularity of reasoning.' In an effort to specify and explain the dependent variable (drug use or involvement in drug-using groups), inferences are made about the independent variable (the drug subculture). Yet it is maintained that the drug subculture, which cannot be directly measured, causes persons to become involved in drug-using groups and in drug use. Another danger in the theory is making inferences about social processes that go beyond the confines of the empirical data.2

The study progresses beyond its data by making inferences about causality that can only be supported by panel data (which it does not have). One survey in 1970 is not adequate to prove causality, but it does suggest that such causal patterns may exist. Despite the possible shortcomings of the theory, evidence, methodology, and analysis, the author is now in a much better position than in Chapter 1 to outline in detail the basic structure, conduct norms, and values of the drug subcultures.

It is necessary to remember the narrow meaning of "drug subcultures." The specific concern here is with understanding subcultures of illicit drug use. Such subcultures have well-defined boundaries. The present data demonstrate that the most important boundary and central criterion for membership in these subcultures is the use of marihuana. More than anything else, the use and willingness to use cannabis separates participation in illicit drug subcultures from other types of drug consumption. Those who medically use prescription drugs, truck drivers who use amphetamines to stay awake, medical personnel addicted to opiates, suburban matrons who alternate diet and sleeping pills, and students who use amphetamines only to help study for exams are not direct participants in the subcultures discussed here.3 Those who use drugs for such nonmedical reasons may be more likely than their nonusing peers to become involved in illicit drug-subcultures. But such medical and nonmedical drug users do not participate in either the black or white drug subcultures if they refuse to use marihuana. Truck drivers and suburban matrons would not consider themselves, nor be considered by subculture participants, as members of the drug subcultures even though they are regular drug users.4 Thus, there are other forms of drug use in society that may also be a problem.5

As indicated in Chapter 1, to understand the existence and maintenance of the drug subculture, one must attempt to describe the primary conduct norms of the subculture. The present analysis demonstrates that there are probably two relatively distinct (white and black) subcultures of drug use among college students in the New York metropolitan area. Each will be dealt with in turn.

The primary conduct norms of the white drug subculture also indicate increasing participation in this subculture. In the white drug subculture, the most fundamental conduct norms hold that a participant is expected to (1) interact with marihuana users, (2) use marihuana or hashish if offered, (3) use cannabis with some regularity (once per month or more), (4) buy from or sell cannabis to friends if one possesses a quantity of marihuana, (5) meet and befriend users of hard drugs, (6) be willing to try hard drugs, especially hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, and methedrine, (7) become an increasingly regular user of these hard drugs, (8) be willing to buy and sell these hard drugs, and (9) learn beliefs and values justifying drug-using and drug-selling behavior. In addition, the drug subculture is associated with "secondary" conduct norms; these norms expect subculture participants to believe and participate in political militancy, sexual permissiveness, and plans to leave college. Such conduct norms are secondary in the sense that drug subcultures would not be disrupted if these norms were not followed. But for social and historical reasons that are not clear, these norms are presently attached to drug subcultures.

The data support the existence of each of these conduct norms. The first and second norms can be inferred from Graph 4.1, which shows that 90% of those most of whose friends use cannabis have themselves used cannabis and that a third of the sample has friends almost all or all of whom use cannabis. The third norm can be inferred from the fact that 41% of those with most friends versus 1% of those with few cannabis-using friends are regular (weekly) cannabis users. In addition, Graph 6.1 reveals that less than 10% of the experimental (less than monthly) cannabis users have used any hard drugs, while much higher rates of hard-drug use occur among moderate and regular cannabis users. The fourth conduct norm can be inferred from information presented in Chapter 5; 1% of the nonusers, 40% of the experimental users, and 95% of the regular cannabis users had bought cannabis, while 1% of the noncannabis users, but 72% of the regular cannabis users, had ever sold cannabis. Thus, the greater the use of cannabis, the greater the likelihood of buying and selling cannabis.

In Chapters 6 and 7 one finds support for the fifth and sixth conduct norms. Students without friends or with friends (but not close friends) using a particular hard drug are relatively unlikely to use that drug, while those with intimate friends using that drug are very likely to try it. Also, white college students are more likely to use and gain friends using hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, and methedrine than black students. The evidence also indicates that white students frequently gain friends who use these white drugs because of involvement in cannabis-using groups and the respondent's own cannabis use. This suggests that white neophyte cannabis users are likely to particpate in groups in which these white drugs are used. The clear expectation of the subculture is that an increasingly regular cannabis user will turn on to hard drugs; the precipitating factor is having intimate friends who use that drug. Although this study has not presented evidence that increasing regular use of these white drugs occur, the reader should be assured that having intimate friends using a particular drug is crucial to the frequent (monthly or more) use of that drug (norm 7). In addition, Graph 5.2 demonstrates that among cannabis sellers the more regularly a hard drug is used, the more likely a person is to buy and to sell that hard drug (norm 8). Conduct norm 9 is demonstrated in Graph 8.2, where agreement with the Increased Benefits Index and Hip Life Style Index was seen to be strongly related to drug buying and selling.

In addition, the data demonstrate the existence of secondary conduct norms; plans to leave college, involvement in political militancy, and sexual permissiveness are highly correlated with drug selling or drug-subculture involvement. Why such secondary conduct norms are associated with subculture involvement is not clear. Perhaps in other time periods or among noncollege populations these secondary conduct norms might not be associated with drug subcultures. Such secondary conduct norms are not as essential to the existence of drug subcultures as are the primary conduct norms governing drug use, friendships with drug users, and drug purchase or sale.

The evidence suggests that there is also a second subculture of drug use. However, the data on the black drug subculture is not definitive, as it is for whites. Nevertheless, a comparison of limited data with studies of black populations6 allows one to conclude that the conduct norms governing drug use in the black subculture are probably similar to the norms of the white drug subculture.

The major difference between these subcultures lies in the drugs that increasingly regular cannabis users are expected to use. Marihuana-using blacks are expected to use cocaine and heroin; whites use hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, and methedrine. But the processes by which blacks and whites are recruited into, and maintained in, their respective drug subcultures are virtually identical. Marihuana use introduces students to each racial subculture; drug selling increases the depth of involvement in the subculture.

In addition, the data suggests how students come in contact with drugs from the racially opposite subculture. About the only whites who have a high proportion of cocaine or heroin-using intimates are those selling hard drugs. Likewise, drug selling leads blacks to gain intimates using amphetamines, sedatives, and methedrine. For both races, the use of cannabis is virtually unrelated to having intimates using drugs from the opposite subculture when involvement in the buying and selling of drugs is held constant.

From this evidence, one may infer that selling activities, especially the sale of hard drugs, tend to expand one's circle of acquaintances beyond that of close friends. Selling drugs increases the probability of meeting someone from the opposite subculture and befriending him. White college students probably become involved in cocaine and heroin because they are highly involved in drug selling, which allows them to meet and befriend black drug sellers on campus. The process works even more strongly in the reverse direction. Black drug sellers meet and befriend white drug sellers on campus and are introduced to white subculture drugs. In order to decisively prove this cross-subculture contact hypothesis, further research with a larger sample and including noncollege blacks is needed.

Thus, the evidence demonstrates the existence of conduct norms and values of two drug subcultures. How, then, are students recruited into these subcultures of drug use? It will be remembered that Chapter 1 suggested a theory of socialization into progressively more unconventional groups: from conformity to the parent culture, to participation in the peer culture and then to involvement in the drug subculture. This book has dealt with this theory of articulation between cultures or subcultures in a most cursory manner. This theory deserves far more consideration than can be given in a book analyzing illicit drug use.

The evidence shows that parent-culture expectations for college students do have a decisive impact upon the use of drugs and many other activities. Data in most chapters demonstrate that noncannabis users are generally less likely than cannabis users to engage in all forms of unconventional activities such as drug selling, hard-drug use, crime, premarital sex, auto deviance, or leaving college. Although the data is not presented, if one percentages in the opposite direction, one finds that those who are most conventional (sexual virgins, church attenders, regular class attenders, those who do not participate in delinquency or auto-related deviance) are significantly less likely to use cannabis or other drugs than their less conventional peers. hence, conventionality inhibits drug use.

The most impressive evidence for the effect of parent-culture expectations is found in Chapter 4, which found that the greater the commitment to parent-culture norms, the less the probability of having cannabis-using friends (a measure of a participation in an unconventional group) and the less likely students are to use cannabis. Thus, highly conventional persons—the very religious, noncigarette smoking, politically moderate females—were very unlikely (2%) to have most of their friends using cannabis or to ever use cannabis (4%) themselves. The few highly conventional persons with most friends using cannabis had generally tried marihuana but were much less likely than their unconventional peers (daily cigarette users, left, nonreligious males) to be weekly cannabis users. One suspects that this kind of explanation may apply to other types of unconventional behavior such as sexual activity, crime, and political activity, although this study has not investigated this possibility. Hence, the data tend to demonstrate that abiding by the norms of the parent culture does decisively reduce the probability of participation in drug-using groups, as well as the use and regular use of cannabis and other drugs.

Although not presented, data show that conventionality as measured by religiosity, cigarette smoking, political orientation, and sex is significantly related to peer-culture participation. Chapter 8 also briefly demonstrated that the Peer Culture Index is strongly associated with auto deviance, crime, and aggressiveness but not so strongly correlated with political militancy and premarital sex with four or more persons. Further, involvement in these unconventional activities has not changed much over time. Thus, about the same proportion of college freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors had engaged in premarital sex, crime, and aggressiveness in high school. Since those high on the Peer Culture Index were more likely than the noninvolved to engage in these activities, it may be concluded that crime and sex have been legitimated and are relatively common among those involved in the peer culture since 1966 (the present data extend back no further).

However, cannabis use was uncommon in 1966. Chapter 3 demonstrated that the operating invention of cannabis use has been increasingly incorporated as a new and relatively legitimate behavior among those highly involved in the peer culture. As measured by our Peer Culture Index, those highly involved were more likely than those not involved to have tried cannabis prior to high school graduation in 1966 and much more likely to have done so in 1969. The greatest increase in cannabis use has occurred among those highly involved in the peer culture (Graph 3.4). Hence, the peer culture has incorporated cannabis use as a legitimate group activity in much the same manner as sex, aggressiveness, and crime have been legitimated for some time.

Unfortunately, this book is not the place to explore the details of how the peer and parent cultures are related to many different forms of deviance. The question of whether, and how, different subcultures of delinquency may emerge from the peer culture is surely a fascinating one, but it cannot be pursued in depth at present. However, the analytic scheme employed to understand drug consumption may be, to a certain degree, applicable to the analysis of other forms of unconventional behavior.

An important branch of the peer culture, the drug subculture, is directly dependent upon the peer culture's norms of spending much free time with peers in settings beyond adult social controls. This subculture also depends upon the parent culture's legitimation of alcohol use for social reasons and the use of various psychoactive drugs to get to sleep or to stay awake. Thus, the drug subculture is truly a subculture because it depends upon the other two cultures for many of its basic norms. In addition, the other cultures are structured in such a way that they increase or decrease the probability of participating in drug subcultures.

Having discussed the conduct norms, values, and structures of drug subcultures, as well as how students are recruited into such subcultures from the parent and peer cultures, an examination of how the present (as of 1972) drug laws articulate with drug subcultures is needed. Drug subcultures are strongly related to the present drug laws, which prohibit the possession and sale of cannabis and hard drugs. Central to this discussion is the Illicit Marketing Index. Chapter 5 asserted that this variable was a good measure of (1) participation in the illicit drug market; (2) increasing participation in the drug subculture, which is theoretically and empirically independent of the use of drugs; and (3) how present drug laws making drug possession and sale illegal influence the illicit drug market and drug subculture. This book maintains that the illegality of cannabis is central to the organization of the illegal drug market and to the maintenance of drug subcultures.

First, although there is no natural law compelling regular drug users to sell drugs, participation in the illicit drug market is closely linked to drug use. Chapter 5 demonstrated that the frequency of drug use is directly related to the illicit purchase or sale of that drug. Furthermore, the use, purchase, and sale of cannabis seems to precede the use, purchase, or sale, respectively, of hard drugs. The Illicit Marketing Index indicates different degrees of involvement in illicit drug buying or selling; all of the evidence indicates that buying cannabis is less serious than selling cannabis, while selling hard drugs indicates more serious involvement than selling cannabis only. Thus, the Illicit Marketing Index appears to be a valid indicator of increasing participation in the illicit drug market.

Even more important, the data demonstrate that the Illicit Marketing Index is probably the best indicator of drug-subculture participation. As public officials have observed, cannabis use and hard-drug use are positively related to unconventional outcomes such as political militancy, premarital sex, crime, leaving college, having hard-drug-using friends, and having contact with police for drug violations. However, the data demonstrate that officials ignore the most important factor. The Illicit Marketing Index was more strongly related to all indices of unconventionality than was the Frequency of Cannabis Use Index or, for most indices, the Multiple Drug Use Index. In most cases, when drug buying or selling was held constant, the relationship between drug use and unconventional outcomes was greatly reduced. This indicates that increasing participation in the illicit drug market is more important than the level of drug use in determining certain undesirable (from the official viewpoint) outcomes. While frequency of cannabis use, multiple drug use, and other factors may also indicate increasing subculture participation, drug selling is statistically more powerful than other factors in explaining a wide variety of phenomena associated with drug use.

Why is the Illicit Marketing Index such a important indicator of subculture participation? The following interpretation is speculative and needs further testing but is probably better than other interpretations. In both the black and white drug subcultures, those not involved in drug buying or selling and those who only buy cannabis remain, for the most part, within fairly stable peer groups in which drugs are infrequently used. Cannabis buyers probably obtain small amounts of marihuana from someone in the group who has contact with the outside drug sellers. Or if those who only buy cannabis make contact with a pusher, the relationship will probably remain instrumental; persons just buy marihuana and see no need for further interaction.

Persons who only sell cannabis probably sell a small amount of surplus cannabis on an irregular basis to close friends in order to smoke free. However, cannabis sellers have probably bought an ounce or more of marihuana and have had somewhat more opportunity to meet and befriend users of hard drugs than persons who only buy cannabis. Nevertheless, the data demonstrate that students who only sell cannabis are not a great deal more likely than cannabis buyers to have hard-drug-using intimates, be sexually permissive, and be involved in crime or delinquency. This suggest that cannabis-only sellers tend to remain in relatively cohesive peer groups and are not much more likely than cannabis buyers to gain new friends who use hard drugs.

However, those who sell hard drugs are more likely to have intimates using hard drugs than are cannabis sellers. This suggests that students who become involved in selling hard drugs are likely to leave their old peer group and, through contacts made while selling drugs, begin to participate in new peer groups in which the use of hard drugs may be a common group activity. In addition, friends in such new peer groups are likely to be highly involved in many forms of unconventional behavior. New participants in these peer groups are expected to abide by the conduct norms that govern group behavior. Acting in accordance with these primary and secondary conduct norms probably reflects, and is perhaps equivalent to, deep participation in the drug subculture. Thus, deep participation in the illicit drug market (hard-drug selling) is closely related to, and perhaps a cause of, heavy participation in drug subcultures. The data suggest that hard-drug selling and heavy subculture participation are essentially the same phenomenon.

It is also suggested that involvement in the illicit drug market is a direct function of the illegality of cannabis and hard drugs. The most compelling evidence of the direct effect of drug laws can be found in Chapter 5, In which evidence is presented that demonstrates that the more frequently cannabis is used, the more likely it is to be sold; no other factors strongly affect this use-sale relationship. In addition, evidence from Goode and Carey suggests that the illegality of cannabis is an important factor in understanding marihuana selling.8 From the seller's point of view, the amount of work and time involved in selling an ounce or more and the risk of arrest for drug charges are about as great (or small) as for minor cannabis sales (less than $5). Thus, cannabis buyers who want to obtain a couple of marihuana cigarettes are likely to be offered an ounce or more on a "take it or leave it" basis.9 But an ounce is more than weekly cannabis users will consume in three months, so some may be sold to friends at cost. Students quickly learn that they can smoke free and make some extra money selling to nonintimates. In short, there are very rational reasons why students become involved in drug selling: (1) Cannabis cannot be legally obtained, so the job of distribution becomes that of regular users by default. (2) An economically feasible black market that takes the threat of arrest into account sells such large quantities of cannabis that marihuana users cannot use it all and hence are likely to sell some of what they do not need. (3) Involvement in cannabis selling teaches students how to ignore the moral judgments of nonusers as well as how to avoid the legal penalties attached to selling; once the basic rules of selling are learned, it is easy for the cannabis seller to branch into selling hard drugs, especially those which he uses. (4) Since there is more money per sale to be gained from hard-drug sales, about half the cannabis sellers become involved in selling hard drugs. Thus, the data suggest strongly that present drug laws, which make the possession or sale of cannabis a criminal act, are directly responsible for what they attempt to prevent—the illegal sale of drugs and, perhaps indirectly, the illicit use of hard drugs.

If present drug laws are directly responsible for the sale of cannabis and the illicit drug market, then such laws may indirectly support the black and white drug subcultures. However, this is not to say that the laws against cannabis are the historical cause of these two drug subcultures. Subcultures centered around heroin and cocaine use appear to be an outgrowth of the enforcement of the Harrison Act. 10 The historical reasons for the development of a subculture emphasizing the use of hallucinogens, pills, and methedrine is even less clear, although much more recent. It should be recognized that over time drug subcultures may change preferences for various drugs. For example, prior to World War I, blacks showed a preference for cocaine, while it was generally accepted that whites were more likely to use opiates. It is not clear why blacks began using heroin after World War I, but such a shift has definitely occurred.11

The remainder of this chapter will develop arguments for making cannabis legitimately available.' It will only discuss the need for a change in social policy without discussing what policies should be pursued. Suggesting such policy alternatives would require another full-length book and necessitate a wide-ranging review of the literature on drug use. Such a discussion obviously is far beyond the confines of the present, limited survey of drug use.

If the data support the theory proposed here and if the theory is generally valid for a middle-class college population,13 then there is a definite need for a fundamental change in drug laws. Essentially, the author holds that illicit drug selling and, indirectly, the drug laws, hold each drug subculture together and provide contact between the black and white drug subcultures. Making cannabis legitimately available might have the result of ungluing drug subcultures.

It may be objected that marihuana did not make the subculture and is only a symbol of the youth subculture, and, further, that there are too many other attitudes and feelings involved in the subculture for a fundamental change in governmental action toward cannabis to have much effect upon drug use. Such objections are serious ones and may be true; it is the job of another researcher to disprove the present theory by defining what the other factors or explanations of drug use may be. But a few such objections can be somewhat refuted by the theory and evidence presented in this book.

Marihuana is a relatively new symbol among the American youth subculture, or what has here been called the peer culture (Chapter 3). Marihuana use is predominately symbolic within the peer culture; students use marihuana as a symbol in much the same way as cars, parties, drinking bouts, and sexual encounters are symbolic of independence from adult controls. But marihuana use has consequences that are more than symbolic, just as auto accidents, drunken fights, pregnancy, and venereal disease are the occasional, undesirable outcomes of other symbolic actions.

However, the consequences of marihuana use do not derive from any pharmacological property of cannabis. The main nonsymbolic outcome of increasingly regular cannabis use and a direct function of present drug laws is exposure to, and involvement in, cannabis purchase and sale. If there are attitudes and feelings among youth or the peer culture related to drug selling that are independent of present drug policy, they are not found in the present study. In Chapter 5, a wide variety of factors were held constant, including measures of attitudes, life style, and peer-culture involvement; none of these factors greatly affects the strong linear relationship between cannabis use and sale. If students become involved in cannabis selling, the probability of becoming hard-drug users and selling hard drugs increases. Further, the data suggest that the depth of involvement in drug selling measures involvement in drug subcultures. Thus, the crucial link between marihuana use, which is symbolic in some respects, and deep drug-subculture participation is marihuana selling. If most regular cannabis users could somehow obtain cannabis without a substantial proportion becoming sellers, it is probable that a smaller proportion of cannabis users would be recruited into new peer groups abiding by the drug-subculture conduct norms.

The author suggests that a change in cannabis policy is needed to undercut the illicit drug market and undermine drug subcultures. Making cannabis legitimately available would probably not increase, and might actually decrease, the probability of involvement in unconventional peer groups and behaviors.

There are five reasons why fundamental changes in laws controlling cannabis are needed. First, when participation in the drug market is held constant, the frequency of cannabis use is a relatively minor or unimportant factor in gaining hard-drug-using intimates and involvement in unconventional outcomes such as hard-drug use, sexual permissiveness, delinquency, militancy, leaving college, poor grades, or contact with police. In short, cannabis use does not independently cause, nor is it strongly associated with, unconventionality; rather, increasing subculture participation is a more important cause of such behavior.

Second, regardless of how frequently they use cannabis, persons who neither buy nor sell drugs and those who only buy cannabis are not much more likely than noncannabis users to be involved in unconventional behavior (graphs in Chapters 6-10). The main exception to this finding is that cannabis buyers are more likely than noncannabis users to have intimates using hard drugs that are common in the subculture of the respondent's race. Thus, the simple use of cannabis or only buying cannabis is associated with whites gaining intimates using hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, and methedrine, while blacks are likely to gain intimates using cocaine or heroin. But cannabis use or purchase is not associated with having intimates using drugs in the opposite subculture.

This evidence suggests that the drug subculture's equivalent of retail customers, persons who only buy cannabis, behave much more like noncannabis users than like sellers of hard drugs. Another interpretation of this finding is that persons who are marginally involved (cannabis buyers) in the drug subculture are not much more likely to exhibit unconventional behavior than nonsubculture participants. Only those persons who are deeply involved in the subculture are likely to participate in unconventional groups and behaviors. This finding permits the suggestion that if cannabis could be legally purchased at a regulated retail store, present cannabis sellers might become buyers, and their involvement in unconventional groups and behaviors might not increase much, if at all, and might even decrease.

Third, the extensive use of cannabis among college students generates an enormous demand for the illicit drug market to meet and serve. Table 3 shows that a much larger proportion of the total population has tried cannabis (55%) than has illicitly tried hallucinogens (19%), amphetamines (15%), sedatives (14%), methedrine (9 70) , cocaine (7%), or heroin (4%). In a similar fashion, cannabis is much more likely to be used frequently (monthly or more) than other drugs; 34% of the total population has used cannabis monthly or more compared with 7% for sedatives, amphetamines, methedrine, and hallucinogens; 2% for methedrine; and 1% for cocaine and heroin (data not presented).
Fourth, cannabis sales are a central feature of the illicit drug market. In the sample, 22% have sold cannabis; 7%, hallucinogens and amphetamines; 5%, sedatives; 4%, methedrine; and 1%, cocaine or heroin. Almost everyone who has sold a hard drug has also sold cannabis (Table 6). In addition, although data is lacking, one suspects that among college students more than a majority of all drug sales involve cannabis. Students who only sell cannabis are very low-level sellers and probably sell small amounts for low profit to intimates within their own peer group.

However, it is only among cannabis sellers that persons are likely to sell hard drugs (Graph 5.2). Hence, selling cannabis is an important and almost necessary transitional step in becoming deeply involved in the drug subculture.

Even among hard-drug sellers, cannabis sales are probably very important. The author suspects but does not have the data to prove, that a majority of sales made by those ever selling hard drugs are for cannabis alone. It is probable that hard-drug sellers gain a large proportion of their total earnings from sales of marihuana or hashish, although they may make more money per sale from hard drugs. 14

But regardless of how much money is made from selling cannabis, it is the enormous demand for marihuana that probably provides the hard-drug seller with a long list of potential customers for hard drugs, customers he would not meet otherwise. Without the volume of customers generated by the constant demand for cannabis, most hard-drug sellers (even the heaviest sellers) would find their earnings greatly reduced. Legal cannabis might greatly decrease the number of customers for hard-drug sellers. This could possibly undermine the very foundations of the illicit drug market existing on college campuses. As alcohol bootlegging diminished at the end of alcohol prohibition, so might the illicit drug market diminish if cannabis were legally available.

However, if cannabis were legally available but hard drugs were not, it is probable that the illicit drug market would not completely collapse but might become organized around the sale of other drugs, although on a considerably reduced scale. On the college campus, the illicit drug market would probably reorganize around hallucinogen sales. In the black ghettoes it appears that the illicit drug market is presently organized around heroin sales more than around marihuana sales."

Fifth, cannabis sales and, indirectly, the illegality of cannabis are a central link between marginal and deep participation in each drug subculture. The data demonstrate that deep involvement in drug subcultures is common among persons who sell cannabis and hard drugs. Subculture theory suggests that students learn the conduct norms and values of the drug subculture through participation in drug-oriented peer groups. The central question of subculture theory is, How do students become involved in peer groups in which most of the members abide by unconventional conduct norms and values? Evidence demonstrates that students become highly involved in unconventional peer groups because of drug-selling activities. Those who sell hard drugs are more likely than cannabis-only sellers and cannabis buyers to have intimates using hard drugs, to use hard drugs themselves, to be sexually permissive, to be involved in delinquency, to leave college, and to have contact with police.

Legal cannabis might decrease the probability of progression into drug subcultures. If cannabis could be purchased on a retail basis, many cannabis-using students would no longer have a concrete reason for seeking out illicit drug sellers. Such cannabis users would not have to purchase more marihuana than they want or need. Even if regular cannabis users did meet hard-drug users and sellers, the need to maintain contacts with such sellers might decrease because cannabis could be obtained elsewhere. The opportunity of participating in new hard-drug-using peer groups might decrease. In addition, as demonstrated above, the subculture's equivalent to retail customers, cannabis buyers, are relatively less likely than hard-drug sellers to be deeply involved in subcultures and unconventional peer groups. If cannabis were available on a retail level, it is possible that a smaller proportion of college students would progress deeply into drug subcultures than do so at the present time.

In short, the findings suggest that legal cannabis might be an important ingredient in dissolving the glue that holds drug subcultures together. Legal cannabis would undermine the illicit drug market and, at the same time, undercut the social processes by which students are recruited into, and maintained in, each subculture. We can also hypothesize that fewer persons would have an opportunity to meet and befriend users and turn on to drugs from the racially opposite drug subculture.

The conclusions, inferences, and theory presented in this chapter depend upon assumptions that may not be correct. Further research with panel data is badly needed to straighten out patterns of causality between drug use, having drug-using intimates, and drug selling. In addition, much more information about patterns of illicit drug selling is needed. Information about "big" pushers is not as badly needed as information about the low-level sellers. Do low-level sellers remain with their old peer group? Or do they gain new, hard-drug-using friends and leave their old peer group? To how many different persons has a seller sold drugs? How intimate is he with his buyers? How much of his drug supply is consumed by himself, given to friends, and sold for clear profit? Does he specialize in selling certain drugs? To what extent does the seller, or the buyer, try to increase the intimacy of the interaction? To what extent are sellers seen as respected leaders in the subculture? Do sellers make most of their money from cannabis sales? Do users of hard drugs sell cannabis to support their use of hard drugs?

Answers to such questions will also allow one to test assumptions about whether cannabis selling is crucial in gaining intimates using hard drugs. Such data might demonstrate that the author's theory is incorrect. Perhaps hard-drug sellers start using hard drugs and then begin selling cannabis in order to pay for their increasing drug expenditures. Rather than one factor being predominantely causal, drug selling, gaining hard drug using friends, hard-drug use, and unconventional behavior may occur at about the same time, but still indicating increasing subculture involvement. Also needed is information about how different drugs become legitimated historically within a drug subculture, and why racial differences in drug use tend to persist in the relatively integrated atmosphere of the college. Other researchers are urged to challenge the assumptions and theory herein; empirical research can be usefully utilized to provide better understanding of crucial issues in the drug controversy. But no matter how the subculture theory is challenged, it provides a far better understanding of the empirical evidence than any theory or hypothesis propounded by supporters of the present drug laws.

Above all else, the evidence demonstrates that present drug laws play a fundamental role in structuring and organizing subcultures of drug use. It is participation in such drug subcultures, and not the use of drugs, that should be of central concern to lawmakers.

REFERENCES

1. Marvin E. Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti, The Subculture of Violence, London: Tavistock, 1967, p. 155.
2. Ibid., p. 157.
3. Erich Goode, "Multiple Drug Use Among Marijuana Smokers," Social Problems, 17 (Summer 1969), 54.
4. Carl D. Chambers, An Assessment of Drug Use in the General Population, New York: Narcotic Addiction Control Commission, May 1971, pp. 60-100, shows high levels of regular pep-pill and other prescription drug use among populations that probably do not use marihuana.
5. Hugh J. Parry, "Use of Psychotoropic Drugs by U.S. Adults," Public Health Reports, 83 (Oct. 1968), 799-810. Glen D. Mellinger, "The Psychotherapeutic Drug Scene in San Francisco," in Paul H. Balachy, Drug Abuse: Data and Debate, Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1970, pp. 226-240. Glen D. Mellinger, Mitchel B. Baiter, and Dean I. Manheimer, "Patterns of Psychotherapeutic Drug Use Among Adults in San Francisco," Archives of General Psychiatry, 25 (Nov. 1971), 385-394.
6. John Langrod, "Secondary Drug Use Among Heroin Users," International Journal of the Addictions, 5 (Dec. 1970), 611-636. Lee N. Robins and George E. Murphy, "Drug Use in a Normal Population of Young Negro Men," American Journal of Public Health, 57 (Sept. 1967), 1580-1596.
7. Wolfgang and Ferracuti, Ref. 1, pp. 158.161.
8. Erich Goode, Marijuana Smokers, New York: Basic Books, 1970, pp. 255-259. James T. Carey, The College Drug Scene, Englewood, Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 79-93.
9. Goode, Ref. 8,•p. 253.
10. Alfred Lindesmith, The Addict and the Law, New York: Vintage, 1965, pp. 3-34.
11. David F. Musto, personal communication, June 1972.
12. We use the term "legitimately available" in preference to "legalization," which frequently is felt to mean the absence of controls. We suggest making cannabis available but severely restricting the availability of the drug. For discussion of a possible model of "legitimate availability," see John Kaplan, Marijuana—The New Prohibition, Cleveland, World, 1970, pp. 332-352.
13. See Chapter 3 for comparison of our sample with several other studies of college populations.
14. Carey, Ref. 8, pp. 74-81.
15. Edward Preble, "Taking Care of Business—The Heroin User's Life on the Street," International Journal of the Addictions, 4 (Mar. 1969), 8-12.