Historically, the most significant argument for the prohibition of marijuana has been that the drug causes its users to commit violent crimes. If true, this clearly provides a sufficient governmental interest in outlawing a substance that at first glance might appear to harm only its user. Although there is a vigorous ongoing debate over the moral right of society to protect its members from their own vices, very different issues are raised in the case of a drug that may cause its users to be-come violent and assaultive. In this case society would not so much be protecting its members against their own vices as at-tempting to protect its non-drug-using members from the violent assaults and other crimes that follow from marijuana use.

In this country, marijuana use was linked to aggressive crime from the first days the drug began to receive public atten-tion—in the 1926 New Orleans newspaper exposés of what was then called the "Muggles" trade). This series of articles, intro-duced by banner headlines, focused on the grip marijuana maintained on Negroes and school children, but scattered through it were reports of violent crimes committed by drug-crazed mari-juana-users.

Indeed, the connection between marijuana and aggressive crime was the argument relied on most often by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in securing antimarijuana laws. In 1937, just before the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act—the initial federal prohibition of marijuana—Commissioner Harry J. Ans-linger stated:

How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, hold-ups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity it [marijuana] causes each year, especially among the young, can only be con-jectured.2

The Influence of Moral Views

In weighing the evidence on the connection be-tween marijuana and aggression, one is struck by two things: one is the relatively large number of statements made by policy-making committees, medical societies, and public officials as com-pared with the relatively small number of studies that actually bear on„the issue; the other is the even more striking fact that the studies and evidence relied on in these statements are of extremely weak probative value. In fact, both of these phenom-ena reflect to a great extent the same principle.

Sociologists have pointed out in a large variety of contexts that one's perceptions are very much influenced by one's expecta-tions and moral views. If a person sees marijuana as evil for any reason, he will tend to regard those who use it as evil people. More important even, he will regard the drug as a cause of this evil and indeed of a host of other misbehaviors. This is not to say his descriptions of the evidence will fly flatly in the face of the truth. It is merely to say that because of his beliefs, the observer may notice and remember behavior that corresponds to his expectations far more often than behavior or data that does not. And if one's moral views are deeply enough involved, one will accept studies as probative despite otherwise apparent meth-odological errors that might undermine one's conclusions. As stated by Professor Erich Goode, a sociologist,

Each individual facing an emotionally charged issue selects the facts which agree with his own opinions, supermarketlike. [One's belief about a drug is not] the result of objective evidence ration-ally weighed and judiciously considered. The process rather works in the opposite direction. The drug is considered harmful as a result of customs which articulate or clash with the use and effect of the drug, as a result of the kinds of people who use it and the nature of the "reading" process society applies to these individuals, and as a result of campaigns conducted by moral entrepreneurs, as well as innumerable other processes . . . and then positive and negative traits are attributed to the drug.3

Marijuana Crimes

In any event, the primary evidence available in 1937 to support Commissioner Anslinger's position on marijuana and aggression was specific case histories of individuals whom marijuana had allegedly caused to commit violent crimes. The Bureau of Narcotics had attempted to list the most dramatic support for Commissioner Anslinger's view by including in its report for the previous year some three pages entitled, "Mari-juana Crimes," though interestingly, it disclaimed full responsi-bility for the accuracy of the information on the grounds that "the Bureau of Narcotics is not in possession of full details re-garding some of these cases which were not reported in connec-tion with seizures of the drug."

'The following summary of cases illustrates the homicidal tend-encies and the generally debasing effects which arise from the use of marihuana:

A citizen of Alamosa, Colo., stated that there had been scores of cases of violent and petty crimes and insanity in southern Colorado in recent years incited by the use of marihuana. Local officials there have been seriously aroused about the problem.

Following a series of crimes in Huerfano County, Colo., at-tributed to marihuana cigarette smokers, chief of which was an attack on the sheriff by a marihuana user which nearly resulted in the officer's death, local officers uprooted 75 pounds of mari-huana from one plot.

In October 1936, the chief engineer of a vessel arriving at Baltimore complained to the Federal narcotic office that the crew of his vessel were using some unknown narcotic that was so virulent in its effects on the men that the officers were obliged to protect themselves by carrying blackjacks to ward off attacks. The narcotic agent made an extensive investigation and ascertained that a fire-man, aged 22, was a marihuana user, and that two of the seamen on the ship had purchased a bag of dried marihuana while ashore in the Canal Zone and smuggled it aboard the ship where it was consumed by members of the crew. Officers of the steamer said these men were "under the influence of this narcotic throughout the trip to Baltimore and that their conduct bordered on the mutinous."

William Barnett of Chicago, Ill., was arrested for the posses-sion of marihuana. At the time of Barnett's arrest he was in possession of a letter from Pete Gurralo, alias Joseph Fierro, of Mankato, Minn., offering to furnish marihuana in any quantity from 1 pound up. On September 22, 1936, Balli, alias Tom Gur-rola, killed a man at Albert Lea, Minn. Following the murder he escaped from prison and fled to the farm of his father. He was identical with the man who offered to supply marihuana to Bar-nett. When the officer went to the farm to apprehend him, he found 6 or 7 bushels of marihuana contained in a sack and two cardboard boxes, and concealed under a haystack.

A young man in Baltimore, Md., was sentenced to be hanged for criminal assault on a 10-year-old girl. In his plea of not guilty he testified that he was temporarily insane from smoking mari-huana cigarettes.

A man was killed in Wilmington, Del., by one Pettyjohn. When the police attempted to arrest Pettyjohn for the crime he attacked the police with a long knife. To protect their lives, the police officers shot and killed Pettyjohn.

On the same date one Cleveland Hodge was arrested in Wil-mington for possession of about 3 pounds of marihuana. Hodge said he had gathered the plant from a plot of ground used by Rhodes, the man who was murdered as above described, and fur-ther stated that Rhodes had told him about the weed, which he called "weaver weed"; that if a tea was made from it, it would cure rheumatism. Hodge said he used a cup of this tea three times a day and had done so for a long time; and both Rhodes and Pettyjohn were apparently under the influence of marihuana. This case was prosecuted in Delaware under the Uniform State Nar-cotic Act.

Police in Columbus, Ohio, were called upon to investigate a disturbance on a public street, where a young man, Howard Horn, was menacing citizens with a pistol. The officer, while attempting to subdue Horn, was attacked by him and wounded three times. He was obliged to return the fire to save his own life, and Horn was killed instantly. Investigation by the vice squad showed that Horn, who was 19 years of age, was a marihuana addict and at the time of his attack on the officer was under the influence of this narcotic.

The district attorney of Santa Fe, N. Mex., and an investi-gator for the New Mexico State Police seized 15 pounds of dried marihuana on February 10, 1936. On February 9 a murder was committed by two men addicted to the use of marihuana. One of these assaulted the arresting officers with a gun at the time of arrest. From this source of supply represented by the foregoing seizure it was believed that the perpetrators of these crimes se-cured the illicit marihuana. Seven arrests resulted from the murder and marihuana cases, and five convictions were obtained, the other two being released on bail of $1,500 each.

After a 15-year-old boy was found mentally deranged from smoking marihuana cigarettes he furnished information that led to the arrest of three men who admitted making sales of the ciga-rettes. Fifteen to eighteen pounds of marihuana were seized from their garage. At the time officers stated that there were 20 known addicts of high-school age in the Ohio town. The men arrested allegedly told the officer that they had become alarmed several months previous to their arrest when the youths appeared abnor-mal and began annoying them for heavier supplies. The appre-hension of this gang cleared up a serious situation.

In Columbus, Ohio, a 35-year-old man was sentenced to the electric chair for robbery and first-degree murder of a hotel clerk. His plea of not guilty was based on insanity due to smoking mari-huana cigarettes and the fact that he was under the influence of marihuana when the crime was committed.

A seizure of 115 marihuana cigarettes was made in New Orleans, La., at which time the owner, foiled by officers in an attempt to shoot himself, grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed himself three times above the heart. He escaped, and was later found, and had in his possession an ice pick, with which he at-tempted to destroy himself when placed under arrest. He made a second escape.

In New Jersey a particularly brutal murder occurred, in which case one young man killed another, literally smashing his face and head to a pulp. One of the defenses was that the defend-ant's intellect was so prostrated from his smoking marihuana ciga-rettes that he did not know what he was doing. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to a long term of years. The prosecutor was convinced that marihuana had been indulged in; that the smoking had occurred; and that the brutality of the murder was accounted for by the narcotic, though the defendant's intellect had not been totally prostrate.

A gang of seven young men, all under 20 years of age, who for more than 2 months terrorized central Ohio with a series of about 38 stick-ups, were arrested in Columbus, Ohio, on robbery charges. They confessed that they operated while "high" on mari-huana.

One of the youths admitted that he had smoked "reefers" on and off for at least 2 years, and said that when he went with the others on stick-ups he was "ready to tear anybody apart" who opposed him. He claimed the practice of smoking marihuana first started among his friends about 4 or 5 years previously, while most of them were still in high school. In describing his crimes he said: "If I had killed somebody on a job, I'd never have known it." This Was verified by the officer obtaining the confessions, who explained that the hardest problem was to get these youths to remember who committed the stick-ups, or when or where they happened. When police told them how a filling-station attendant reported a robber threatened to beat his brains out with a revolver butt, one admitted he the robber, but had forgotten his own words.

It was almost impossible for them. to break off the habit when they could still get "tea" so easily, they claimed. "When you try to break off you get jumpy, your hands shake, and you hear the least little noise. A dopey feeling comes when you're going down, and you get mopey. You get so you smoke a 'stick' a day, and you can't stop."

An examination of these marijuana crimes shows that in not a single case was there a serious attempt to establish that mari-juana was in fact a cause of the crime. In 1936 there was no dispute that the great majority of marijuana-users were not only members of minority groups, but also, by and large, the most delinquent members. To be told that such people commit ag-gressive crimes is hardly surprising; to blame this on marijuana use is unconvincing, at least in the absence of a comparison with the number of aggressive crimes committed by similar delin-quents with no history of marijuana use.

Nor is it especially significant that at least certain of the "marijuana crimes" were committed by people actually under the influence of marijuana. No one can deny that it is possible to commit a violent crime under the influence of marijuana. The question, it would seem, is whether marijuana makes one more or less likely to commit such a crime, and statements such as those in "Marijuana Crimes" are of no help on this issue.

Finally, we should not attribute undue significance to the fact that in several cases defense counsel relied on marijuana intoxication as a foundation for an insanity defense in a trial for a violent crime. First of all, there is apparently no record of a case in which such a defense was successful. Secondly, the use of such a defense is far more likely to be based upon defense counsel's judgment of what it will be least difficult to get a jury to believe, considering the climate of the times, than upon ob-jective medical facts. Nor does this necessarily reflect merely a cynical attempt to manipulate the jury. People who have com-mitted violent crimes often blame their behavior on external factors, and so long as they can displace some of their guilt onto a drug such as marijuana, some will do just that.

The Licata Case

Lengthy lists of cases where marijuana use has supposedly produced violent criminal outbursts have probably provided the major support for the connection between marijuana and violent crime. Very little attention, however, has been given to tracking down, in any detail, the facts of any of the 'specific cases cited. For instance, probably the most celebrated marijuana crime is the killing by one Victor Licata of his mother, father, two broth-ers, and a sister in Tampa, Florida, on October 17, 1933. The day after the killings, the Tampa Times carried the story be-neath a page-one headline, "Crazed Youth Kills Five of Family with Ax in Tampa," and reported that the slayer "dazed and staring wild-eyed was arrested at the scene as officers broke into the home."5 According to the Times, "Licata was crouched in a chair in the bathroom and offered no resistance as officers searched him for weapons. He mumbled incoherently when asked about the crime."5 The marijuana connection was that

W. D. Bush, city detective chief, said he had made an investigation prior to the crime and learned the slayer had been addicted to smoking marijuana cigarettes for more than six moriths. This he said had unbalanced his mind at least temporarily. A similar statement was made by Frank S. Caston, state drug and narcotic inspector, who said he had aided Bush in the investigation and was prepared to make charges against the youth when he heard of the ax slaying. He had also heard of several places where Licata bought the doped cigarettes.7

The same day's paper announced that the police chief was "to war on marijuana traffic here"8:

Police Chief Logan said yesterday after he had been informed that the weed used as a cigarette had been indirectly to blame for the wholesale murder of the Michael Licata family . . . "Maybe the weed only had a small indirect part in the alleged insanity of the youth, but I am declaring now for all time that the increas-ing use of this narcotic must stop and will be stopped."9

The same attitude was expressed two days later in the Times' lead editorial, which also first admitted uncertainty as to the causal connection between the marijuana and the killing, but then went on to assume that the causality was established. Under the healing, "Stop This Murderous Smoke," the editorial stated that

... it may or may not be wholly true that the pernicious marijuana cigarette is responsible for the murderous mania of a Tampa young man in exterminating all the members of his family within his reach—but whether or not the poisonous mind-wrecking weed is mainly accountable for the tragedy its sale should not be and should never have been permitted here or elsewhere. . . It re-quired 5 murders to impress the Tampa public and Tampa offi-cials with the serious effects of the habit.10

The next mention of the Licata case in the Tampa news-papers occurred some eleven days later when the Times reported that a psychiatric examination of Victor Licata had revealed that he was criminally insane» The psychiatric report described Li-cata's condition as "acute and chronic," and asserted that he was "subject to hallucinations accompanied by homicidal impulses and occasional periods of excitement." According to the examining psychiatrist, Dr. H. Mason Smith, Licata's insanity was very probably inherited. Licata's parents were first cousins, his paternal granduncle and two paternal cousins had been committed to insane asylums, and his younger brother Phillip, one of his victims, had been diagnosed a year earlier as suffering from dementia praecox. Moreover, it turned out that the police, the year before, had filed a lunacy petition seeking to have Licata himself committed but withdrew it when the youth's parents maintained that they could take better care of him at home.12 As a result of this information, Licata was adjudged insane and committed to the state mental hospital.13

Nor does Licata's story end there: his subsequent history provides a strong indication that his crime resulted from a long-lasting psychosis rather than from any drug effect. Licata was diagnosed twice at the Florida State Mental Hospital, first as suffering from "Dementia Precox," and then, upon recapture after an escape, as suffering from "Dementia Precox with homi-cidal tendencies." In addition, from his arrival at the hospital until December 4, 1950, when he hanged himself, Licata's be-havior was "overtly psychotic." Over all this time, however, the mental-hospital records did not blame either Licata's 'dime or his mental illness on marijuana; in fact, they did not even men-tion his use of the drug."14

It is obviously difficult—indeed impossible—to show whether Licata was under the influence of marijuana at the time of the killings or, even more significant, if he was, whether it was the drug, rather than any underlying schizophrenia, that could be said to have caused the killings. Despite these problems, how-ever, the Licata case has played a significant part in the history of marijuana prohibition in the United States. Thus, Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics and the principal witness before the Congress that passed the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, told the legislators of only three specific cases illustrating the connection between marijuana and violence. The details given as to two of these are today insufficient for them to be identified and examined; the third, however, is a case where:

In Florida a 21-year-old boy, under the influence of this drug killed his parents and his brothers and sister. The evidence showed that he had smoked marijuana.15

Nor has the Licata case faded from view since 1937. Thus Anslinger, over twenty years after his Congressional testimony, wrote:

Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and killing that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. . . . A sixteen-year-old [sic] kills his entire family of five in Florida. . . . Every one of these crimes had been preceded by the smoking of one or more mari-juana "reefers."16

Moreover, Pablo Osvaldo Wolff of the Expert Committee on Habit Forming Drugs of the World Health Organization, in his often-cited Marijuana in Latin America (1949), refers to the case as follows:

The second case, of like importance, is that of a young man of nineteen [sic], of the State of Florida (U.S.A.), of good character, quiet and jovial, who, under the influence of marijuana, suddenly attacked his entire family with an axe. The parents and three brothers [sic] were killed. The assailant remembered absolutely nothing about the horrible crime.17

Finally, the Licata case is listed in what is probably the most widely circulated compendium of cases purporting to sup-port the criminogenic properties of marijuana, Dr. James Munch's "Marijuana and Crime.'18 Printed originally in the United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics, the article cites a case from Tampa, Florida, in 1933 where the defendant "murdered his father, mother and sister and two brothers with an axe while under the influence of marijuana. Didn't know of all this until the next morning.'"19

Despite the fact that lists of marijuana crimes, no matter how dramatically described, are no substitute for checking into the actual relation of marijuana to violence, the published lists of marijuana crimes are still with us today. The sheriff of Los Angeles County put out a list of thirty-eight such crimes only two years ago and supplemented it with some thirty more the next year, while the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was at least as late as 1968 still making available such "Examples of Crime and Violence Associated with the Use of Marijuana." The problem, however, in all these cases is one of selectivity: in its field manual the Federal Bureau of Narcotics required that district supervisors obtain from local police officials "reports in all cases . . . wherein crimes were committed under the influence of marijuana." This type of investigation is parodied by sociologist Erich Goode, who states,

. . . imagine the impressive dossier which might result from a request that reports be conveyed on anyone wearing a hat while committing a crime; a case could thus be made on the crimino-genic effects of hat wearing.20

One should not, however, suppose that dramatic examples —whether or not either factually true or logically probative—are ineffective. Note the impact on one of the senators during the legislative hearings on the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937:

SENATOR DAVIS (viewing a photograph presented by Mr. An-slinger). Was there in this case a blood or skin disease caused by marijuana?

MR. ANSLINGER. No; this is a photograph of the murdered man, Senator. It shows the fury of the murderer.

SENATOR BROWN. That is terrible.21

The Gardikas Study

In addition to the published lists of marijuana crimes, advo-cates of the causal connection between marijuana and aggressive crime typically cite several statistical studies. Probably the most often-cited study is that of Professor C. G. Gardikas, former head of Greek criminal services.22 Technically the Gardikas study is on a somewhat broader issue since it connects marijuana use not only with aggressive crime but with criminality in general. As described by one law-enforcement official:

Of special significance is the investigation of Professor C. G. Gardikas in which he analyzed a group of 379 hashish-smoking criminals. He found that 117 of these became criminally inclined only after their habituation to hashish. Nevertheless, they had between them more than 420 sentences for assaults, woundings, threats, robberies, manslaughter, and sex offenses.23

Interestingly enough, the first thing that strikes one in comparing the Gardikas report with the above summary is that Gardikas specifically disavows any link between marijuana and the sex offenses.

To draw any less obvious conclusions from Gardikas' data it is probably necessary to consider his entire sample. This con-sisted of "379 individuals either sentenced or arrested, flagrante delicto, for using hashish publicly" between 1919 and 1950. Of these 379 hashish-users, 209 were "already criminals prior to starting the use of hashish"; 53, after their initial arrest for hashish use, were involved in no further trouble with the law ex-cept hashish offenses or vagrancy; and finally, 117 had their first brush with the law over hashish, but went on to be "confirmed criminals."

Gardikas divides this last subsample of 117 hashish of-fender4 into three approximately equal parts. The first group after "their first sentence" for having used hashish, were subse-quently given 332 more sentences-142 of which were for hash-ish offenses and about the same number were for violent crimes or crimes that involved weapons, including 18 for "insults" and two for "high treason." In the second group, the initial hashish involvements were followed by 420 sentences. Of these, 178 were for hashish offenses, with the next largest category being 84 sentences for theft. Though this group had committed a small number of violent crimes, they were primarily involved in various relatively minor offenses such as illegal gambling, living on im-moral earnings, "false statement of identity," and "fishing with dynamite." In the third group, those "who after having made use of hashish became criminals," the sentences for involvement with hashish were followed by 332 sentences, of which 127 were for hashish offenses and the great majority of the rest were for theft. With respect to this group, Gardikas reports that

the above 33 individuals, although not at all criminals before, after they have started to use hashish, turned into habitual hashish smokers and habitual criminals with a strong propensity leading exclusively toward crimes of dishonesty and particularly theft and fraud. At least one-half of them are purely and undoubtedly to be characterized even as dangerous idle vagrants.24

The basic problem underlying Gardikas' paper is his con-clusion that hashish use caused his subsample of 117 arrestees to become criminals. This assumes, first, that they had not en-gaged in crime before beginning to use hashish and, second, that it was the hashish use and not something else that turned them toward crime. Neither of these assumptions is justified by the data Gardikas presents. As for the first assumption—that the 117 members of the subsample had not engaged in crime before their hashish arrest—all we lmow is that they had not been arrested or convicted for other crimes first, a very different thing indeed. The second assumption—that the subsequent criminality was caused by the hashish use—is also impossible to justify. Even if the members of the subsample had not previously been criminals, it may very well be difficult to distinguish the criminogenic effects of hashish from those of conviction and sentence to Greek jails.25

Even aside from any criminogenic effect of the Greek penal system, the figures may indicate only that once somebody has been arrested for hashish—and probably served a term in jail as well—he is more likely to be picked up by the police when further crimes are committed. Finally, the years from 1919 through 1950, during which Gardikas' data was collected, were a period of enormous social dislocation, including a war with Turkey, an occupation by Italian and German troops, and a bloody civil war. It is obviously an almost impossible task to sort out how much of the subsequent criminality in the subsample was due to hashish use and how much to the social chaos that prevailed in Greece.

Even were these problems solved, there is another perhaps more basic reason to doubt the validity of Gardikas' methodology. Although the sample purports to be taken from an examination of those "sentenced or arrested, flagrante delicto, for using hash-ish publicly" during the period from 1919 to 1950, the small number of persons involved indicates that Gardikas has used only a small percentage of the similarly situated hashish offenders. Nor did he even take a sample from one locality, since he refers on several occasions to the majority of hashish-users as "hailing from localities once dominated by the Turks." If Professor Gardikas picked his 379 cases from police records that placed special emphasis on those who had been subsequently convicted of criminality, whatever value the study had would be lost.

The Wolff Study

After that of Gardikas, the study most often cited for the proposition that marijuana use causes violent crime is that of P. O. Wolff, Marijuana in Latin America: The Threat It Consti-tutes. Dr. Wolff's study, for the most part, consists of the repeti-tion of many of the marijuana crimes stories that we have already discussed, and of quotations from earlier studies. In both aspects he exhibits what can be characterized only as a looseness in his handling of facts. Not only does he, as mentioned previously, include the Licata case as one "of like importance" in that it "elucidates in a particularly clear manner the outstanding role that marijuana can play as a breeder of crime," but he asserts that "an American commission which studied marijuana addic-tion in the Panama garrisons found among the addicts individuals who were under charges of 'violence and insubordination."26

The report to which he refers is "Marijuana Smoking in Panania."27 There, as a result of controversy over the attitude the military should take toward marijuana—which was apparently widely used in the Canal Zone, especially by Negro soldiers--the commanding general of the Panama Canal Department in 1931 designated a committee to investigate the "effect of marijuana smokingrupon military personnel, with a view to deciding whether marijuana should be forbidden." In only two places in the com-mittee's report do mention of the words "violence" and "insub-ordination" occur. In one, the committee stated that

... military records of delinquency among the military personnel were also available and the committee found that in only a very small percentage of individuals brought to trial before General Courts Martial, in which there was a record of violence or in-subordination, was it possible to attribute the delinquency to marijuana.28

The other is as follows:

Of the 51 members of the military personnel (1.17% ) in which use or possession of marijuana constituted one of the charges, in only four instances (.09% ) was a charge of violence or in-subordination connected therewith [in three of these four instances apparently the charge was much closer to simple insubordination while in one the defendant struck a military policeman]. . . .29

Moreover, the other conclusions of the committee are exactly the opposite of what Dr. Wolff would have had one conclude. For instance, the committee found that

The evidence obtained suggests that organization commanders in estimating the efficiency and soldierly qualities of delinquents in their commands have unduly emphasized the effects of marijuana, disregarding the fact that a large proportion of the delinquents are morons or psychopaths, which conditions of themselves would serve to account for delinquency.30

And while the committee found that "from a medical stand-point the habitual use of marijuana, as of other stimulants and intoxicants, should be considered detrimental to health,'-' it did point out that

Delinquencies due to marijuana smoking which result in trial by military court are negligible in number when compared with delinquencies resulting from the use of alcoholic drinks which also may be classed as stimulants and intoxicants.31

As a result, the committee confirmed the view of a previous committee of legal, medical, police, and military authorities that had found that

There is no evidence that marijuana as grown here is a "habit-forming" drug in the sense in which the term is applied to alcohol, opium, cocaine, etc., or that it has any appreciably deleterious influence on the individuals using it,32

and discharged its commission by concluding as follows:

With the evidence obtained and considered by the committee no recommendations for further legislative action to prevent the sale or use of marijuana in the Canal Zone, Panama [except for the existing prohibition of possession on a military reservation] are deemed advisable under existing conditions.33

Moreover, despite a foreword to the book by Harry J. Ans-linger, United States Commissioner of Narcotics, stating that Wolff "has been completely impartial, which is the basic require-ment for all scientific investigation,"34 certain questions are raised concerning Dr. Wolff's scientific objectivity and detachment by his own closing paragraphs:

With every reason, marijuana, a drug of the Old as of the New World, has been closely associated since the most remote time with insanity, with crime, with violence, and with brutality.

At the price of a few fleeting minutes of pseudocelestial miracles for a few, a hell of moral catastrophes arises for the community, for public health, and for the sane and laborious people. The individual himself is subjugated by this weed, mes-senger of a false happiness, panderer to a treacherous love, which can provide a superhuman enjoyment and misery, likewise super-human, which makes him sick—morally more than physically—and changes thousands of persons into nothing more than human scum. It is this weed which sunders the bonds of inhibition that make it possible for men to live together in a society; weed of the brutal crime and of the burning hell; this weed which splits the personality, which invades the prison and the asylum, the hovel and the palace, which subjugates the savage and the cul-tured; this weed which attempts to convert paupers into kings, weaklings into champions, minutes into years, and evil into good; thrt weed which brings dreams, which sets free the spiritual and the bestial, and, with the ease that Baudelaire and Gautier pen famous pages, makes the rabble bespatter pages with blood. There you have the picture of this diabolical resin which approaches under the mask of pleasant friendship.35

The Bouquet Study

Another foreign work often cited is that of J. Bouquet from Tunis.36 An examination of his paper reveals that though he has a considerable amount to say about the debilitating effects of marijuana use (we will consider this in a subsequent chapter), he explicitly denies that marijuana has any effect upon crime in the areas with which he is familiar:

The problem is certainly not the same in North America.. .. What is particularly alarming is the fact that the investigations of the Governments of the United States and Canada show cannabis to have a marked influence on criminality among such addicts.

The same cannot be said about North Africa or the Levant.37

More interestingly he cites, as his only reference on the criminogenic properties of marijuana in America, an article by Judge Twain Michelson.88 An examination of this latter article reveals that while it collects stories of drug-related crimes, the drugs involved are primarily the opiates, and the article does not con-tain one mention of a crime specifically attributable to marijuana use.

Two Nigerian Studies

'The last of the foreign studies cited by law-enforcement authorities on this issue are two from Nigeria, both by psychia-trists and both quite equivocal on the existence of any connection between marijuana and crime. The first of these, by Asuni, ex-amines those inmates of two Nigerian mental hospitals who had previously been marijuana-users." His conclusion on the relation between crime and marijuana hardly supports the connection:

Apart from the patient with the urge to steal, an aggressive schizophrenic sent from the court with the charge of intent to do grievous harm with a machete and a motor driver, who was imprisoned for reckless and dangerous driving, there is no major crime in these series. It is conceivable, however, that a lot of reck-less action of a criminal nature could be enacted mostly during the period of acute [marijuana] intoxication and to a minor extent during the residual psychotic state. In any case it is not easy to establish the relationship between crime and cannabis smoking, as the relevant information is usually anecdotal and inquiries into the crime factors overshadow the cannabis factor.40

Nor are the conclusions of Lambo, the other psychiatrist, any clearer.4' Thus, while he reports that in a study of three West African countries about half of the murderers had been long-standing users of marijuana, he does not attempt to give us any estimate of the percentage of such marijuana smokers in the population at large—and more particularly in the social stratum from which the murderers were drawn. Furthermore, he lists only seventy-three murders as a total in the three countries over a two-year period. We do not know his sampling technique, but it is certainly hard to believe that this group, whether or not half of its members were marijuana-users, represents all or even a large fraction of the murderers in the three nations.

Moreover, Lambo's own theory as to the relation between marijuana and murder is interesting:

In many West African countries, reports have been received of highly-organized political thugs who are prepared to undertake any form of villainy. Usually, these hired individuals, who are constantly "fed" on Cannabis indica and alcohol liberally, "pro-tect" their political overlords who hire them. We also suggest that the use of cannabis enhances suggestibility in certain individuals, and this may be a factor in the commission of crime by these chronic abusers.42

We should note first, that in this description alcohol seems to play as great a part as marijuana; second, that this mechanism is the exact antithesis of a relation between unpremeditated, un-provoked, violent crime and marijuana; and filially, that the whole thing seems to be based on rumor.

The Vogel Study

The only American study—aside from the lists of marijuana crimes—that is cited as evidence that marijuana use leads to aggressive crimes is that of Victor Voge1.43 This study of state-ments made by one hundred heroin addicts at their release hearings showed that twenty reported aggressive reactions after smoking marijuana. (Twenty-six reflected passive reactions, and fifty-four did not mention reactions of either type.) The first problem in evaluating the significance of Dr. Vogel's study is the translation of statements such as "Under the influence of marijuana I broke into a church and robbed the collection box," or "I feel stubborn and get into arguments when I am high," into the likelihood of the type of violence appropriate to a "killer weed."

Moreover, even ignoring this point, there are two other serious methodological problems that prevent our drawing any conclusions as to the connection between aggression and mari-juana use in the population at large. As will be seen subsequently, the heroin addicts who made up Dr. Vogel's sample are an extremely rare type of marijuana-user, inclined to be among the most delinquent. As a result, any effects of marijuana on mem-bers of this special and relatively small group cannot, without a great deal more evidence, be regarded as typical of the far larger and more diverse group of marijuana-users with whom any legal scheme must be primarily concerned. In addition, it is significant that each of the quoted statements was made at a release hearing where the addict knew that his statements would be a factor in securing his release. Such a procedure is far better adapted to finding out what the addict thinks his questioner wishes to hear, than to determining the effect of any drug. In this case, where the convicts were dealing with officials who they had every reason to believe would regard marijuana use not only as a parole violation, but as a powerful determinant of subsequent heroin use, they had compelling reasons to cite as many possible grounds for not using marijuana as they could muster.44

The Views of Police Officers

In addition to the published lists of case histories that assert that marijuana has caused specific newsworthy acts of aggressive crime, another major source of public belief in this connection has been the statements of working law-enforcement officers. Apparently, the only effort to study this in some systematic detail has been that of Glen W. Schofield, in 1968 a Stanford law student and now a federal government attorney. Since this study is un-published, it will be worthwhile to set out a fairly lengthy portion of it. Schofield writes:

Law enforcement agencies have continuously supported the existence of a strong causal relationship between the use of mari-juana and acts of aggression and violence. In order to determine the nature and basis for this belief, sixteen law enforcement and narcotics officers were interviewed. The officers selected for the interview from each police department were those who spent the largest percentage of their time actually working with marijuana users. When the department had several officers working full time on narcotics, the officer in charge was interviewed, on the suppo-sition that as chief officer, he would have the longest and widest range of experience with marijuana users.

Of those interviewed, seven spent 100% of their time on narcotics problems; three spent 75% to 100%; 1 spent about 50%; and the remaining five spent 10% to 25%. All emphasized that of their narcotics work, a major proportion of the time is spent on marijuana problems.

The context in which the officers observe individuals under the influence of marijuana is an important factor in evaluating their observations. Only three had done stake-out work where conduct could be observed while under cover. The remaining thirteen officers had only encountered marijuana users in either arrest or questioning situations. In response to the question of whether they had opportunities for informal contact with people using marijuana while off duty or in a social situation, the officers uniformly answered, "no."

The specific subject of this project, Le. marijuana and aggres-sion, was never mentioned to the officers. They were told only that I was interested in the marijuana question. The first question which I asked was to briefly characterize, from their personal experience and observations, the behavior of individuals while urxler the influence of marijuana. During this original description, 10 of the officers mentioned violence or aggressive behavior as a common characteristic. The six other officers didn't mention aggression as a distinguishing characteristic in their original description; however, in the next question, when specifically asked if marijuana does lead to aggressive behavior, all said that it did.

'Every one of the officers pointed out the wide range of con-duct which they see exhibited by those that are "high" on mari-juana. They emphasized that how a person reacts depends on his particular personality. As one officer commented, "Some indi-viduals are very happy and to them everything is beautiful, while others are always looking for a fight." Six (6) of the officers emphasized how quickly they can see one mood change into the other—at one moment docile and passive, at another extremely aggressive.

A few of the officers commented that along with the direct influence of marijuana, another important factor in aggressive behavior is the arresting situation. One officer, Lieutenant A of the B Police Department, who has done qiiite a bit of stake-out work as well as undercover investigation, pointed out that this change from "silly, joking, funny and talkative" moods to appre-hensive and often aggressive postures is many times precipitated by the realization that a law enforcement officer is present.

Sergeant C of the D Police Department also felt the "arrest-ing situation" was probably the primary factor in aggressive be-havior reports about marijuana users. Sergeant E also mentioned "the approach of a known policeman" as a factor in the aggressive behavior which they see. However, Sergeant E also estimated that one fifth of the males, when under the influence of [marijuana] and when aware that they are being arrested, will break and run or resist. This he feels is a much higher percentage than for other types of arrests. Similarly most of the officers did maintain that even considering all other factors such as arrest, the marijuana was the force in most cases which was responsible for the aggression and violence.

Mr. F of the G County Sheriff's Office, however, maintained that in the last few years, those arrested for marijuana offenses have tended to resist arrest less often than previously. He stated, "They now feel they don't have to fight the officers because of the laws—because of legalizing attempts, they feel they don't have to fight, for they will have their day in court."

Sergeant H of the I Police Department stated that recently (within the last year) he has seen no aggressive reaction to mari-juana because of the extremely weak grades of marijuana now available. He felt that the determinative factor in how a person reacts while "high" is the strength of the grass smoked. He re-ported that the grass they have recently been finding has a very low resin content and its effects are merely "a quick stimulant followed by a depressed mood." However, in another part of the interview, when discussing the type of personality prone to using marijuana, Sergeant H distinguished between those now smoking and the "old grasshead." These latter were only "Spanish-Ameri-can or criminals." Now, however, "people without criminal records are joining the ranks of criminals." This major shift in the personality type now using marijuana, it would seem, would be another factor leading to Sergeant H's observation that the prob-lems with aggressive reactions have decreased.

While all stated their belief that marijuana does lead to aggressive behavior, it was in most cases very difficult to elicit from the officers any specific instances where they personally had observed an aggressive reaction to the use of marijuana. Four (4) officers stated that they had never personally seen someone ag-gressive under marijuana. They all, however, had heard reports of such instances from other officers. It should be noted also, that these four officers are from small police departments located chiefly in middle class residential areas.

The officers who did cite specific examples of aggressive behavior from their personal observations cited such conduct as individuals who possessed marijuana fighting among themselves, cases of resisting arrest, a [man] picking a fight in a bar, beating one's wife, sexual promiscuity, stealing, reckless driving, and carrying knives and guns. While citing this type of example most officers emphasized the real difficulty in telling when someone is "high." Except for a few symptoms such as red or dilated eyes, they have to make the judgment from the general actions of the subject. When the subject is acting peculiar and there is no alcohol, or they find marijuana in his possession, then they assume he is "high."

It was also difficult to limit these discussions solely to mari-juana. When asked for personal case histories, they often re-counted incidents of individuals who had also been using other drugs or alcohol in combination with marijuana. The officers tend to group all of the drugs together, and discuss them together in generalities applying to all. One officer, from J County, recounted as one of his personal experience histories with aggression and marijuana, a boy who went "berserk" on Christmas day, and who finally had to be shot by the police. On checking newspaper accounts, it appears that LSD was also involved in the episode.

The officers all indicated that they have personally seen many aggressive reactions to the use of alcohol. Most, however, did not feel they could compare the frequency with that of mari-juana. Most deal mainly with narcotic problems and thus spend most of their time with marijuana problems. The alcohol prob-lems, and specifically the aggressive or belligerent drunk, are handled by the "beat" cops.

It was also difficult to limit the discussion to personal ex-periences of the officers themselves. Many of them, when asked for specific examples, went immediately to their desks for reports and articles issued by other law enforcement agencies. This it seems is a problem which developed because of the sample chosen to interview. Because they were usually the most experienced and the chief narcotics officers, most of them are called upon to give speeches before PTA's, church groups, school classes, etc. They all, therefore, were familiar with the literature distributed by law enforcement. . . .

Three of the officers cited as proof of marijuana's danger a recent distribution which pointed out that the "death penalty" is now imposed on marijuana offenders in Nigeria.

When questioned on passive reactions to marijuana, all of the officers could think of personal encounters with people who were "high" and who were decidedly passive and docile. Yet only four of the officers included this trait in their original characterization of behavior under marijuana. Eight of the officers, however, in their original description of behavior while "high" described some persons as "happy," "funny," or "giggly."

One question asked of the officers was aimed at differen-tiating the aggressiveness (chiefly in terms of frequency of resist-ing arrest) between those "high" on marijuana and those arrested for sale or for possession. As mentioned previously, the officers indicated that generally they have a very difficult time distinguish-ing those who are "high." The officers interviewed generally work on [arresting] pushers, and dealers. Their attention is usually not drawn to individuals because of the particular conduct they might be exhibiting, but rather because the individual is dealing in mari-juana. When pot parties where everyone is high have been [broken up], Sergeant C of D reported that the places raided have usually been on the peaceful side. Another officer, K, on the narcotics detail in D, felt that users are usually "very easy to arrest. With others, such as pushers, and sellers, however, officers have to be more careful." Captain L of M disagreed, however, maintaining that those under the influence must be watched more closely and are usually more aggressive and violent because of a lessening of concern for the consequences and a lack of ability to make sound judgments. Deputy Chief N of the 0 Police Department pointed out that in 0 at any rate, there is a certain "show" which those arrested feel they must put on; "it is hard to separate this show from the effects of the marijuana." Lieutenant P of the 0 Police Department said his experience indicated that those under the influence had to be watched closely. He has arrested people, [when they were] "high" three of four times without incident; the fifth time, however, he felt they might go wild.

In response to a question of whether they felt that some persons smoke pot before engaging in crimes against property, such as robbery, ten of the officers replied that they did believe that this occurred often. Seven of these could cite specific ex-amples of people who had been picked up for stickups, car thefts, etc. and who reported using marijuana beforehand to bolster their courage, or sharpen their senses. However, the other three of the ten had only heard of such conduct. The remaining six officers answered that they did not think this was common, and had never seen any examples. . . .

None (of the officers) believed however that marijuana was responsible for any long-term effects resulting in aggressive be-havior. The relationship between marijuana and aggression, they feel, is limited strictly to the period of time during which the user is under the influence. In terms of long-range effects of marijuana on aggression, the reactions of the officers confirm that, if any-thing, there is a negative correlation. That is, marijuana leads to non-aggressive, non-competitive, passive conduct, when viewed in the context of chronic use.

Whatever limitations and qualifications one can cite regard-ing the conclusions drawn by law enforcement officers, one thing remains certain: they do believe that the use of marijuana leads in a significant number of cases to aggressive behavior.45

Several things about the Schofield report of police views are especially interesting. Although some of the officers have the feeling that people under the influence of marijuana are more aggressive than the general population, they have no real evidence that such aggressiveness is an effect of the drug. It has been true, until quite recently, that the users of marijuana came from those segments of society most likely to be aggressive." It might well be that marijuana actually made them somewhat less aggressive than they otherwise would have been, but still considerably more so than the rest of the population. This might explain the ob-servation- by one officer that the percentage of people involved in marijuana-induced aggression had decreased lately; since police are coming into contact with many more middle-class users of the drug they are finding a lower percentage of aggressive modes of behavior. Second, it is quite understandable, though of course not excusable, that police experience a certain amount of aggres-sion from those under the influence or in possession of marijuana with whom they come into contact. Unlike the person in pos-session of alcohol, or even the drunk, who, by and large, has not a great deal to fear from the police, the marijuana-user must regard the policeman as his enemy. Moreover, where an arrest is made for marijuana use, it is likely that the subject resents it even more than he would an arrest for most other crimes. For the most part a criminal tends to feel either that his arrest is simply a risk of doing business or else that it is justified to the extent that he has violated his own moral principles as well as society's. In the case of marijuana, however, those arrested, who largely feel that they have done no wrong, can be expected to be especially resentful. And when one considers, too, that criminal penalties for marijuana offenses are usually considerably greater than those for resisting arrest or assaulting a police officer, their efforts to escape may seem even rational.

Furthermore, as pointed out by Schofield, the difficulty po-lice have in telling who is high on marijuana may well lead them to blame bizarre and aggressive behavior on marijuana use, even though in fact it arose from some other drug or was the result of a psychopathology unrelated to the use of any drug. Finally, although several of the officers alleged that marijuana is often used by professional criminals before committing crimes against property, we should note that this weakens rather than supports the connection between marijuana and aggressive crime. Insofar as professional criminals use marijuana before committing crimes against property (and there are several reliable reports of this), they appear to use the drug because it has a calming effect and because under its influence they become less likely to "lose their cool" and perhaps jeopardize their endeavor by becoming ag-gressive at inappropriate times. Although such use of marijuana is hardly to be encouraged, it does suggest that at least some users take the drug precisely in order to suppress irrational ag-gressive behavior. If they are rational in their choice, then it would appear that, at least for them, marijuana acts more as a tranquilizer than as a catalyst of violence and aggression.

The Etymology of "Assassin"

The final source of the commonly accepted link between marijuana and violent criminality lies not in what one might consider the relevant disciplines of pharmacology, psychi-atry, or criminology, but curiously enough, in the realm of etymol-ogy. In 1937, Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger wrote:

In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason. The members were confirmed users of hashish, or marijuana, and it is from the Arabic "hashshashin" that we have the English word "assassin."47

'This was by no means the first argument from word origins to social policy in the United States. An article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal of 1931 stated:

This diabolical, fanatical, cruel and murderous tribe. . . . Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.48

In Popular Science Monthly of 1936 a somewhat different version of the story appeared:

. . . "assassin" has two explanations, but either demonstrates the menace of Indian hemp. According to one version, members of a band of Persian terrorists committed their worst atrocities while under the influence of hashish. In the other version, Saracens who opposed the Crusaders were said to employ the services of hashish addicts to secure secret murders of the leaders of the Crusades. In both versions, the murderers were known as "haschischin." .. .49

The etymological argument is still being used to justify a connection between marijuana and violence. Thus, Dr. Donald Louria, now president of the New York State Council on Drug Addiction, states:

The aggressive potential tof marijuana] is reflected in the term assassin, which is derived from a group of killers under the leader-ship' of a man named Hassan (circa 1300 A.D.) who used cannabis preparation before doing acts of violence."

Dr. Edward Bloomquist puts the matter more strongly:

Philologists dispute whether the word assassin derives from Hasan or from hashish; some maintain that hashish itself derives from Hasan. One thing is certain, however; Hasan, hashish, and assassin were all tied up together in the days when the Fidawi were strewing corpses across the Moslem crescent. And the combination of dis-turbed personalities and a dangerous drug resulted in the same outcome then as it does today, though now the situation seems less romantic.51

In recent years two careful studies have been made of this word origin. In the first of these, J. Mande1,52 although asserting quite correctly that "1 1 th century folklore cannot be the basis for an important 20th century prohibition,"53 comes to the con-clusion that the connection between hashish and the "Assassins" killings was probably derived from the report of Marco Polo:

In a valley between two mountains (The Old Man) had made the largest and finest garden that ever was seen. In it there were all the good fruits in the world . . . the fairest houses and the most beautiful palaces . . . covered with gilding, and adorned with the pictures of all the beautiful things of the earth . . . conduits . . . flowed wine . . . milk . . . honey, and . . water. There were also ladies and damsels there, the fairest on earth, who could play on all kinds of instruments, and sang and danced better than other women.

Into that garden no man ever entered except those he wished to make Assassins. . . . The Old man kept with him at his court all the young men of the district, from twelve to twenty years of age. . . . The Old Man used to have these youths put in the garden . . . he did it in the following way: he had a potion given them as a result of which they straightaway fell asleep; then he had them taken up and put into the garden, and then awakened. When they awoke . . . [they] so believed that they were really in paradise.
When the Old Man wanted to send any of his men anywhere to kill some person, he would order the potion to be given to a certain number of them, and once they were asleep, he would have them taken up and brought into his palace. When the youths.awoke . . . they would be greatly amazed and by no means pleased. . . . They would now go into the presence of the Old Man . . . believing that they were in the presence of a great Prophet. The Old Man would then ask them whence they came, and they would answer they came from Paradise. The other youths, who had not been there and were present for the narrative, would then be consumed by the desire to go to the Paradise, feeling ready to die in order to be able to do so, and longing for the day when it would come about."

According to Mandel, there are several problems with this con-nection between marijuana and violence. First, there is no reason to believe the story, since the enchanted-garden tale "was current all over the East"; second, even in the story there is no indica-tion that the potion involved was hashish, and indeed several of the translations refer to it as opium; and, finally, even if the story were true and the potion were hashish, the connection between hashish and the Assassins' killings would be so remote as to be irrelevant to the issue of marijuana and violence.

The second of the studies on the Assassins myth is by Don Casto 111.55 Casto concludes, as was doubted by Mandel, that the Hashsheshin, from whose name the English word "assassin" was derived, did owe their name to a supposed connection with hashish. Casto, however, points out that the name Hashshishiyyin was given to a particular Muslim sect, the Isma'ilis, by their more orthodox Muslim brothers who regarded their beliefs as heretical and disapproved of their general fanaticism. The pp771e, at least according to Casto, is solved when we remember that the Isma'ilis were

... a despised minority; and, as is often the case in such situations, orthodox commentators delighted in imagining lurid practices and attributing such practices to the Isma'ilis. At this time, the term "hashishiyyin" was a popular slang term of abuse in Syria. It was widely used and eventually came to be used in derisive reference to the Isma'ilis. Since it was slang, it was generally avoided by more careful scribes (hence the paucity of textual references which created etymological confusion for so long), but the Christian crusaders received most of their information orally, and it was readily picked up by them. The word was a commentary on the conduct of the Isma'ilis and not a description of their practices, especially since there is no evidence that they in fact used hashish more than many other groups in the Levant. The English vernacu-lar term "loony," for instance, describes a certain type of conduct, but it says nothing about the relationship between the person so described and the moon, although the etymology of "loony" in-volves a folk belief that the moon played a role in stimulating aberrant behaviour. Likewise, the term "hashishiyyin" describes conduct which to orthodox Muslims was madness, but it says nothing about the use of hashish by the Isma'ilis.56

The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission

Having taken up the sources for a belief that marijuana causes violent crime, let us now examine the reasons to hold a contrary opinion. Almost certainly the best place to begin is the remarkable report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Com-mission of 1893-94.57 Despite its antiquity and relative obscurity it remains in all probability the most complete and well-balanced treatment of marijuana (and cannabis, or hemp, drugs generally) in existence. The report itself stems from a question asked in Parlia-ment in 1893, when a member rose and inquired:

MR. CAINE (Bradford, E.) : I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India if the Secretary of State for India will instruct the Government of India to create a Commission of Experts to inquire into, and report on, the cultivation of, and trade in, all preparations of hemp drugs in Bengal, the effect of their consumption upon the social and moral condition of the people, and the desirability of prohibiting its growth and sale. . . .58

The Secretary of State promptly asked the government of India to appoint a commission to determine the facts of the matter for possible governmental action.

Pursuant to this request, the government of India selected a seven-member commission consisting of four British officials and three "Native non-official gentlemen." The resolution setting up the commission directed the new commission to investigate not only the effects of the drug but also some crucial but less obvious questions such as the methods of cultivation of the plant and preparation of the drug, the possibilities of controlling drug abuse by licensing, taxation, or other noncriminal methods,

[The danger lest prohibition or restrictive measures of strin-gent character may give rise to serious discontent and be resented by the people . . . [and] . . . the probability or possibility that if the use of hemp drugs is prohibited, those who would otherwise con-tinue to use them may be driven to have recourse to alcohol or to other stimulants or narcotics which may be more deleterious."

In response to this mandate the Hemp Drugs Commission worked essentially full time for over a year, made field trips to thirty cities, and received evidence from 1,193 witnesses (of whom 335 were medical practitioners) who were among those in India most likely to be able to contribute information on the issues. The commission exhaustively analyzed not only this in-formation but also the records of many judicial proceedings and the files of every mental hospital in British India. Throughout its work, the commission devoted careful attention to the costs and the side effects of criminalizing marijuana, as well as to the effects of the drug itself. Then the commission published its report, together with six large volumes of appendixes, which has, as recently as 1968, been called "by far the most complete and systematic study of marijuana undertaken to date."6°

In attempting to reach conclusions about the involvement of marijuana in violent crime, the commission began by distinguishing between the moderate consumer of hemp drugs and what it called the "excessive user." Although it is clear that for many reasons a considerably higher number of excessive users —in terms of both the amount and the strength of the prepara-tions used—were found in Victorian India than in the modem United States, it was true there as here that moderate consumers made up the great bulk of the population of users. Then, the commission discussed a number of questions that had been put to all its witnesses for the purpose of shedding light on the possi-ble connection between marijuana and violence.

The first of the commission's questions relevant to any con-nection between marijuana and violence was "Are consumers [of marijuana] offensive to their neighbors?" The theory of this question was that if indeed this drug did provoke violent out-bursts of aggression, those who would most clearly realize this would be the neighbors of the users who would then, of course, regard them as offensive. As to this issue the commission con-cluded that the "evidence can leave little doubt on the mind of anyone who peruses it carefully." First of all, only about half of the total number of witnesses stated that they knew anything about the, issue, leaving the commission to conclude that "it may be safely presumed that of these the great majority have no experience of anything offensive in consumers," a fact that spoke all the more decisively when one considered the widespread and completely open use of the drug in Indian society. Moreover, of the seven hundred witnesses who had opinions, six hundred stated that moderate consumers are in no way offensive to their neighbors and indeed in this respect "cannot be distinguished from the total abstainers." Of the one hundred who did find marijuana-users offensive, most were referring only to excessive users, whom they found offensive not because of the likelihood that they would commit aggressive acts but because of "the smell of the smoke," the "coughing and expectorating," or the "ex-ample set to their [neighbors] sons who are growing up."

The commission next proceeded to consider another aspect of the connection between marijuana and crime. It began by distinguishing between the long-run effects of the drug in pro-ducing "bad characters" and its immediate effects in promoting unpremeditated crimes of violence—what we would call the "chronic" as opposed to the "acute" effects of the drug. As to the first issue—the chronic effects—two-thirds of the witnesses felt that no unduly large proportion of moderate consumers were "bad characters," while a reduced number, but still a majority, felt that even excessive consumption was unrelated to "bad char-acters." Moreover, where the issue was more precisely phrased in terms of causation rather than of simple association, a ma-jority of eight to one "held that moderate consumption of these drugs had no connection with crime in general or with crimes of any particular character," while a majority of four to one felt that there was no causal relation between excessive consumption of the drugs and being a "bad character." The commission went further and attempted to explain the connection between the use of marijuana and crime alleged by the relatively small minority of the witnesses:

A very large proportion of the natives of this country have a strong aversion to the use of intoxicants, and may reasonably be expected to influence their children against them in precisely this way. This may lead some witnesses to take an exaggerated view of the number of bad characters who are consumers. But there need be no hesitation in accepting the view that this number is indeed larger in proportion than the number of consumers among the general population. Consumers of hemp drugs are found more among the lower orders, among the poor, than among the wealthy. The former are, of course, the classes to which the badmashes or bad characters belong.61

Before moving on to what was then in India as well as today in the United States considered the most important connection between marijuana and crime—the drug's alleged tendency to provoke violent unpremeditated crimes—the commission disposed in passing of two other questions that are occasionally raised even today. As to the first of these, whether criminals fortify themselves or use the drug to supply "Dutch courage" before committing a crime, the commission concluded that

the truth seems to be that as hemp drugs help the consumer to endure great fatigue or exposure and stimulate him to unwonted exertion, criminals like any other consumers of these drugs go to them for that assistance when they feel they require it.62

On the next question, whether criminals "use hemp drugs to stupify their victims," the commission pointed out that although there were allegations of "thefts of ornaments from children stupified by [marijuana-containing] sweet meats," there was very good reason to be extremely dubious about this if only because several other freely available drugs were far more effective and disabling than hemp products and considerably easier to admin-ister surreptitiously.

Then the commission proceeded to the major question: whether consumption of hemp drugs is "connected with unpre-meditated crimes, especially crimes of violence." Since it was clear to all that moderate consumption of marijuana or its deriva-tives was not in any way connected with crimes of violence, the commission addressed itself only to the implications of excessive consumption. Again a clear majority of the witnesses believed that there was no such connection. The commission itself felt that the most likely effect of excessive use of marijuana was to

develop or bring into play the natural disposition of the consumer, to emphasize his characteristic peculiarities or to assist him in ob-tainrng what he sets his mind to. If he sets his mind at ease and rest and is let alone he will be quiet and restful. But if he is naturally excitable and ill tempered or if he is disturbed and crossed he may be violent.63

Of course, this conclusion, even if accepted, does not dispose of the issue. Before we could tell then whether marijuana provoked violence we would have to know whether the total violence com-mitted by those who are excessive consumers of the drug would be greater without the drug. This would depend, among other things, upon which was more likely: that external circumstances would override their natural inclinations to peace and quiet if they did not use the drug, or that marijuana would sufficiently intensify any existing inclinations toward violence if they did use the drug.

In any event, the commission did not rest with asserting merely that marijuana brought out one's innate traits. It pointed out that

the fact that so many witnesses testified to the peaceable and orderly character of the excessive consumers goes far to prove that in this country experience shows that as a rule these drugs do not tend to violent crime and violence.64

One of the most important undertakings of the commission was its careful examination of the statements made by the mi-nority of witnesses who did find a connection between excessive marijuana use and unpremeditated crimes of violence. As the commission pointed out, these witnesses often made statements like "I have known cases of temporary homicidal frenzy," but later on, questioning revealed that "I can give no examples to illustrate my answer." The commission probed into the details of crime after crime probably ascribed to hemp drugs in India. And again and again it found that the connection with hemp drugs had no greater foundation than in the Licata case.

Indeed, after sifting the testimony of all of the witnesses who alleged specific crimes attributable to marijuana, the commission was able to find only eighty-one cases in all India where the connection was even worth looking into. Of these, eleven were over twenty years old, and as a result, difficult to check. In twenty-three more cases whose records were examined because they were easily procurable, it was clear in eighteen that there was no connection at all between hemp drugs and thé crime. Checking into the details of case after case, the commission pointed out:

it is astonishing to find how defective and misleading are the recol-lections which many witnesses retain, even of cases with which they have had special opportunities of being well acquainted. ft is in-structive to see how preconceived notions based on rumor and tra-dition tend to preserve the impression of certain particulars, while the impressions of far more important features of the case are com-pletely forgotten. . . . Some of the witnesses whose memories have thus failed them are men who might have been expected to be care-ful and accurate. Their failure must tend to increase the distrust with which similar evidence, which there has been no opportunity of testing, must be received.65

Finally, the commission summarized its conclusions:

In regard to the moral effects of the drugs, the Commission are of opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury whatever. There is no adequate ground for believing that it injuriously affects the character of the consumer. Excessive consumption, on the other hand, both indicates and intensifies moral weakness or depravity. Manifest excess leads directly to loss of self-respect, and thus to moral degradation. In respect to his relations with society, however, even the excessive consumer of hemp drugs is ordinarily inoffensive. His excesses may indeed bring him to degraded poverty which may lead him to dishonest practices; and occasionally, but ap-parently very rarely indeed, excessive indulgence in hemp drugs may lead to violent crime. But for all practical purposes it may be laid down that there is little or no connection between the use of hemp drugs and crime.66

Of course, inquiry as to the connection between marijuana and violent crime cannot stop with the report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. Although the report is in some sense a triumph of no-nonsense Victorian efficiency and diligence, we cer-tainly cannot conclude without further discussion that the Indian experience has any relation to that of the United States. On the other fiand, at least on the surface it would seem that the more obvious differences between Indian and American culture would point, if anywhere, in the direction of a greater connection be-tween marijuana and violence in India than in the United States. First of all, there is no doubt that the much more widespread use of marijuana in India would make any such connection much more visible if it existed. Moreover, if this effect were a function of the strength of the drug used, as one would expect, then the far more concentrated marijuana preparations such as charas and ganja used in India would further magnify the observed effect. And since, regardless of the preparation used, the association with violence would be expected to be much stronger with re-spect to the excessive consumer, it is relevant that we would expect to find a far lower rate of excessive consumption in our society, where there is not widespread unemployment and where, by and large, people can occupy themselves with many more pastimes in addition to drug-taking.

The Wootton Report

The conclusions of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission have received support as recently as 1968 in the most comprehensive British study of marijuana." This study was made by the Hallucinogens Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence to the Home Office, sometimes referred to as the Wootton Committee after its chairman, Baroness Barbara Wootton. The subcommittee consisted of a group of the most distinguished British experts on the drug problem, and though, of course, its report includes a good deal of material gathered since the Hemp Drugs Commission report, it supports that report in every major particular.68 Indeed, during the writing of the Wootton report, one of the subcommittee members jokingly sug-gested that they could save a great deal of work for themselves "by just re-issuing the Indian Hemp Commission Report and calling it a day."

In any event, on the issue of marijuana and crime, the Wootton Committee report, after quoting the Hemp Drugs Commission, went on to point out that "In the United Kingdom the taking of cannabis has not so far been regarded even by the severest critics, as a direct cause of serious crime."68 This is es-pecially noteworthy since, in Britain, the major cannabis product is not the vegetable marijuana common in the United States, but "the stronger, resinous hashish," which would be expected to in-tensify any link between marijuana and violence.70

The American Literature

In the American literature, probably the first care-ful study downgrading the importance of marijuana as an insti-gator of violent crime was published in 1934.71 Dr. Walter 13rom-berg, writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, pointed out the difficulty of drawing conclusions about the relation between marijuana and aggression from a study of the atypical persons who at that time happened to use the drug. Dr. Bromberg stated:

The anti-social, aggressive and sadistic elements of the personality uncovered by the drug are responsible for crime rather than any specific, crime-producing properties of marijuana. ... In consider-ing marijuana as a "breeder of crime" it must be borne in mind that psychopathic, unstable and socially inadequate types use the drug. It is quite probable that alcohol is more responsible as an agent for crime than marijuana.i2

If marijuana produces aggressive crime by lowering inhibitions in some psychiatrically unstable persons, then it would be difficult to consider the drug more than a relatively unimportant and minor cause of violence. First, there would be nothing singular about marijuana since a good many other drugs—barbiturates and alcohol, for instance—are at least as effective at lowering inhibitions. Moreover, psychiatrically disturbed individuals often commit violent crimes even though their inhibitions have not been lowered by any drug. In those cases where their inhibitions have not been lowered earlier, the pent-up violent and aggressive tendencies often simply make themselves felt later, perhaps with even more force.

Bromberg's view of the effects of marijuana was given sup-port in a study for what is popularly known as the La Guardia report, reprinted in the American Journal of Psychiatry. There the authors concluded that

marijuana, by virtue of its property of lowering inhibitions, ac-centuates all traits of personality, both those harmful and those beneficial.... Marijuana, like alcohol, does not alter the basic per-sonality, but by relaxing inhibitions may permit anti-social tend-encies formerly suppressed to come to the fore. Marijuana does not of itself give rise to anti-social behavior.73

From these opinions one might well conclude that marijuana does increase violent behavior—albeit not in a large portion of the population. In fact, however, there is evidence that when the total spectrum of users is considered, marijuana-users actually commit fewer aggressive acts than one might otherwise expect. In 1946, another study by Dr. Bromberg done among the pris-oners at the U.S. Naval prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, revealed that of a sample of forty users studied (reflecting the pattern of use at the time, the sample contained thirty-one Ne-groes, eight whites and one Mexican), only two were revealed to have a history of any aggression.74 Dr. Bromberg described the users as "passive, inadequate and insecure" persons who used marijuana to escape from rather than to mount "attacks upon the hostile outward world."

Maurer and Vogel in Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction state their views similarly:

It has not been our impression from contact with many hundreds of marijuana users that these people are violent criminals; on the contrary, most of them appear to be rather indolent, ineffectual young men and women who are, on the whole, not very productive. . . . While there may be occasional violent psychopaths who have used maiijuana, have committed crimes of violence, and who have, in court, explained their actions as uncontrolled violence resulting from the use of the drug, these are exceptions to the general run of marijuana users. . . .

Marijuana is not possessed of any mysterious power to force people to commit acts which they would not otherwise perform.75

Neither of these authorities, however, gives any support to the view that marijuana causes violent crime, and the view that on the whole marijuana is responsible for little or no aggression is supported by several different types of evidence from our stu-dent population. Thus, in Richard H. Blum's large-scale study of drug use on five college campuses, it appears that of those who had used marijuana (nineteen percent of the total sample) less than .01 percent reported getting in fights while under the influence or reported criminal acts attributed to their drug-influ-enced state." Of course, it is prudent to acknowledge the possi-bility of some understatement in the responses, since those who use the drug may be somewhat reluctant to furnish what they might consider damning evidence of the drug's ill effects. On the other hand, it seems likely that persons who had, actually experienced negative effects of the kind in question would be less enthusiastic about marijuana and therefore less prone to conceal any untoward experiences. And, as we will see later, a sizable proportion of marijuana-users did report some negative effects from use of the drug.

Blum's figures acquire added significance when compared with his results on alcohol. Of those who had tried alcohol (ninety-four percent of the total sample) eight percent reported that they had gotten into fights while under the influence of al-cohol and two percent reported criminal offenses after drinking. Blum, who has done extensive work on the subjects of both alcohol and marijuana, lists aggressive behavior as a major social evil associated with alcohol, while taking the view that the prob-lem with respect to marijuana is insignificant.

Dr. Blum's view receives considerable support from an ex-amination of the crime figures on and around university campuses. There, although we have high concentrations of marijuana-users of the ages when violence is most common, the rate of assaultive crimes (at least of the nonpolitical variety) is extremely low—and most of them that can be attributed to any drug are due to alcohol." Thus, the University of California at Riverside, with a population of some four thousand students, had on its campus no violent crimes in the year 1966, one (an armed robbery) in 1967, and none again in 1968—despite the fact that, according to police estimates, thirty percent of the student body had used marijuana. Similarly dramatic figures are available for the University of California at Davis, at Santa Barbara, and even (when political turmoil is factored out) at Berkeley.78

The statistical data on campus crime receives corroboration from what at first might be considered an unlikely source: the overall figures on violent crimes committed by juveniles. This is so even though violence by juveniles has been a rapidly growing social problem. The point is that while marijuana arrests rose 935 percent between 1962 and 1967 (and use among juveniles probably rose even more), arrests for crimes of violence rose thirty-two percent. And while this is certainly alarming in a so-ciety concerned with violent crime, the figures themselves seem to discount any implication of marijuana in the increase. Indeed, the increase in juvenile violence since 1962—the last year before the sharp increase in marijuana arrests--has averaged out to about 6.3 percent per year, while the year before, arrests of juveniles for violent crimes had increased twelve percent.79

Finally, the view that marijuana is not an instigator of violent crime is confirmed by two types of nonstatistical data. First of all, the great majority of marijuana-users, both in and out of the student culture, report that they use the drug not for "kicks" but to relax. They report that it makes them far more good-humored, tolerant, and less aggressive, and that even when they experience a bad effect of marijuana, it is far more likely to be an episode of fearfulness and timidity than any outpouring of aggressive feelings.9° Secondly, this view is supported by inter-views with psychiatrists who are in excellent positions to evaluate the effect of marijuana on large numbers of users. In the words of one investigator:

A report by Dr. James Paulsen, Head Psychiatrist with the Stanford Health Center, asserts that in his personal experience he has never seen "or even heard of a case where marijuana led to aggressive behavior." Dr. Paulsen feels that, "if anything, all experi-ence indicates that marijuana is actually anti-aggressive."

In comparison, the Health Center has had considerable prob-lems with pathological intoxication resulting from alcohol, where the individual becomes extremely aggressive, and finally goes berserk and has to be physically restrained to keep him from harm-ing himself or others.

Dr. Duke Fisher, of the U.C.L.A. Neuropsychiatric Institute, concurs in these findings. His experience has indicated that mari-juana is chiefly a euphoric and tranquilizing drug. Dr. Fisher re-ports that, "Of all the numerous cases of LSD `bad trips' and adverse reactions, I have never seen an example of an aggressive reaction to marijuana. In fact, I have found that quite the opposite seems to be true."81

Dr. Thomas Ciesla, a psychiatrist and colleague of Dr. Fisher at U.C.L.A. Neuropsychiatric Institute, testified to the same effect before the California Senate Public Health and Safety Committee in Los Angeles on October 18, 1967:

Q: Have you ever come across a single case where somebody has undergone perhaps, some personality change, perhaps one of hav-ing less personal restraint and has committed crimes because of this?

MR. CIESLA: have not.

Q: Do you know anyone who has?

MR. CIESLA: No, I don't.82

Even apart from expert opinion and the result of more or less careful studies, there is another powerful indication that marijuana is not a significant producer of violence or aggression. Occasionally, an event occurs that, while lacking scientific con-trols, gives even more emphatic testimony on an issue than could most carefully planned studies. Thus, in Woodstock, New York, on a summer weekend some 400,000 young people assembled for a rock concert. Despite the crowded conditions that would have been expected to produce widespread violence, both Time magazine83 and The Economist" thought it worthy of comment that marijuana was smoked almost universally and that according to police there was not a single fight. This is not to say that aggression under the influence of marijuana is impossible. However, both in absolute terms and as compared with alcohol, the most commonly used drug in our society, episodes of aggression traceable to marijuana use are extremely rare.

Marijuana and Ethnic Minorities

Although it may be conceded that marijuana is not an inducer of violent crime either in the student subculture or in the population at large, it might conceivably be that an entirely different situation prevails among the poor and the ethnic minorities. Such a view is more difficult to refute due to the fact that, with one notable exception, drug use among Negroes and Mexican-Americans has been far less carefully studied than among students. However, though this view would square with both the early reports of marijuana violence and the opinions of working police officers, there are several reasons to doubt it.

A study by Emanuel Messinger, chief psychiatrist of the New York County Criminal Courts, directly refutes this theory.85 Dr. Messinger examined the reports of each of the 14,954 offend-ers examined by his office between 1952 and 1956 and reported that they- "show[ed] no cases of major crimes which can be etiologically related to marijuana usage." It is hard to draw any precise conclusion from this study since no figures are given either for the percentages of offenders who were poor members of ethnic minorities or for the percentage of these who were marijuana smokers. On the other hand we do know that, in New York City, both percentages must have been so high that many cases of violence caused by marijuana would have been evident if the drug had anything like the power claimed for it.

The Blumer Report

In addition, although we have only one study among the poor ethnic minorities that discusses marijuana use, it is probably the most comprehensive examination of the relation between drug use and life-styles that has yet been undertaken. If it is correct, it provides a powerful argument that, although examples of violent crime and delinquency are far more common among deprived Negroes and Mexican-Americans than among middleclass whites, marijuana is no more an instigator of aggression in the ghetto than on the campuses. The study, by Professor Herbert Blumer of the University of California and his associ-ates,86 is sometimes referred to as the "Add Center Report" and sometimes by its official title The World of Youthful Drug Use. We shall refer to it here simply by its most popular name, the "Blutner Report."

One basic conclusion of the Blumer Report is that for the most part the population studied, the Negro and Mexican-Ameri-can youths of West Oakland, can be divided into two basic cul-tures: the rowdy and the cool. The member of the rowdy group, according to Blumer,

may be characterized as aggressive, boisterous, wild and undis-ciplined. He is disposed toward fighting, seizes on any drug, but prefers alcohol, and is ready to engage in the more serious and violent forms of delinquent behavior. . . . The social milieu of these children is characterized by acts of aggression.87

This group, though it tends to prefer alcohol, also abuses a whole series of other drugs, including what are known as."special substances." These substances, such as gasoline and glue, when inhaled in large quantity, produce a type of intoxication believed to be especially dangerous. Like all the other youths except the "lames" (the colorful appellation for those who are complete "squares"), the rowdies use marijuana, but their use of this drug seems to be considerably less than average in the ghetto. First of all, their use begins later in life, since they are usually regarded as undisciplined and unreliable and therefore fewer people will take the chance of supplying them with the illegal drug. Secondly, it seems that the calming effects of marijuana, discussed in Chap-ter III, do not square with their personalities and they tend to prefer other drugs.

The cool culture is in complete distinction to the rowdy. Being cool means

being unruffled in critical situations, keeping one's head, acting wisely, showing calm courage, controlling one's voice and be-havior, being smart and not provoking trouble but being able to handle oneself calmly in troublesome situations.88

The members of the cool culture are divided by the Blumer Report into three subgroups: the pot heads, the mellow dudes, and the players." We will have occasion to discuss these three groups subsequently, but for the purposes of the discussion of marijuana and aggressive crime they can all be lumped together. All use marijuana and none are aggressive physically. Indeed, it is part of their ethic not to be so.

According to the Blumer Report, the use of marijuana is by no means merely an accidental factor in the distinction be-tween the rowdies and the cools. Blumer and his associates notice that although a relatively high percentage of the very young resi-dents of the Oaldand Flats are most accurately placed among the rowdies, a sizable percentage of them, during adolescence, join the ranks of the cools. One reason seems to be that the cools are far more successful in attracting feminine companionship than the rowdies. Part of the cool style is to dress "sharply," whereas the rowdy style not only leaves no room for sharp, expensive clothes but also exerts a powerful wear and tear on them. Marijuana use, however, also has a considerable amount to do with the passage from the rowdy to the cool style. Blumer reports that

the passage from the rowdy type to a cool and mellow youngster, as it relates to the use of drugs, involves chiefly a shift to the smok-ing of marijuana. This is emphasized time and time again by the youngsters in their individual accounts and in their group discus-sions. Their accounts and discussions also stress that the use of marijuana both produces and symbolizes a "mellow" mode of conduct that is opposed to that associated with rowdy behavior. They place great weight on the "socializing" effects of marijuana use, declaring that its use not only leads youngsters away from violence but has the effect of changing them into sociable human beings."

Youthful informants, for example, report as follows,

. . . See, people I know, after they got hip to weed, they just climbed out of the rowdy trip. They squared off completely, you know, wanted to jump sharp, enjoy themselves and be mellow instead of getting all brutalized. . . .91

An interview with one of Professor Blumer's associates underlined this view:

Roger Smith, a member of the Blumer staff who worked daily with the Oakland [youngsters] for eighteen months, personally confirms that he has never seen marijuana lead to aggressive be-havior. In fact, he states, "Under marijuana the drug users of Oak-land are much calmer, and more sociable." At the frequent dances which Smith sponsored, "if there was drinking, then there was violence, but if they were smoking [marijuana], then it was a good dance."92

Interestingly enough, the Blumer Report mentions in passing a reason why the police often believe that marijuana leads to ag-gressive behavior:

We should note the picture of youthful drug use that is formed by police and by a large part of the general public is derived from ex-periences with the "rowdy" type. . . . He is the one most likely to cause trouble for the police and the community and who is most likely to fall into the hands of the law.93

In fact, of course, the rowdies not only form a small percentage of the marijuana-using population, but also use less of the drug than the far less troublesome cools.

Possible Causal Mechanisms

Contrary to popular belief, the evidence on balance indicates that marijuana is not associated with aggressiveness and actually seems to diminish such behavior. However, one can hardly be confident of either effect. The problem is that until there emerges a reasonable explanation for one effect or the other, one should be most wary in accepting any relationship involving causation. Henry L. Giordano, former U.S. Commis-sioner of Narcotics, has asserted that there are four causal mech-anisms:

[Marijuana] may stimulate criminal conduct in any of the following ways: (1 ) use by criminals to fortify their courage prior to com-mitting crimes; (2) chronic use resulting in general derangement and demoralization; (3) use resulting in the lowering of inhibitions and bringing out suppressed criminal tendencies; and (4) use re-sulting in panic, confusion, or anger induced in otherwise normal persons who have not been previous users.94

As we have seen, the first of these mechanisms involves the exact opposite of the usual picture of marijuana as an inducer of senseless violence. Here the only apparent reason for a crimi-nal's use of the drug would be to benefit from its anxiety-reducing and tranquilizing effect. We will discuss the second of these mech-anisms later in Chapter IV. For the present, we need state only that it is almost universally agreed that if excessive marijuana use has any long-term effect on the aggressiveness of the indi-vidual it is to deprive him of that aggressiveness and to render him more passive.

As for the third mechanism, we have already discussed (see pp. 122-23) the undeniable fact that in some predisposed individuals marijuana may act as a trigger, undermining already weak inhibitions against violence. The problem is that this is an argument for the criminalization of all intoxicants. As to this undesirable effect, all available evidence suggests not only that alcohol is considerably more effective than marijuana in lowering inhibitions against violence, but also that the number of cases in whrch marijuana has this effect is quite small in absolute terms—and is probably greatly exceeded by instances in which the drug's tranquilizing effect has calmed persons who might otherwise have been violent.

Finally, the fourth mechanism embodies an assertion that aggressive behavior results from panic reactions to marijuana among those who are using the drug for the first time. The data we have, however, fail to support any significant number of such events; indeed, data such as Blum's flatly contradict their exist-ence. Moreover, not only are panic reactions to marijuana ex-tremely rare, but the panic reaction to any drug typically does not involve aggressive conduct; much more often the sufferer be-comes completely helpless. And, insofar as this mechanism is confined to those who have not been previous users, it repre-sents, at any one time, a very small percentage of the marijuana-using population.

Another causal mechanism for attributing aggressive crimes to marijuana use was given by Dr. Edward R. Bloomquist before the Senate Public Health and Safety Committee:

In toxic proportions [which, Dr. Bloomquist said, was impossible to define] it can cause heinous crimes due to paranoia, megalomania with increased strength, lack of socio-moral inhibitions, and release of basic destructive trends.95

Essentially this means that if marijuana is taken in extreme over-dose, aggressive actions may occur as part of a psychotic break. We will see, however, in Chapter V, The Dangers of Marijuana Use, that the reaction described by Dr. Bloomquist is extremely rare among the American users of marijuana—so rare that it has not been described in any recent scientific paper.

Marijuana and Antiaggressive Effects

In short, both the data allegedly linking marijuana to aggressive crime and the explanations for any such connection are unpersuasive. There are, moreover, two reasonable explana-tions of the contrary phenomenon. First of all, we know that a goodly portion of the action of many drugs is related to the user's conception of proper behavior under that drug. As one recent study points out:

New marijuana users must be taught to notice and identify what they feel, must be taught to label the state as "high" and must be taught that the state is "pleasant." The marijuana induced state of feelings appears to be another instance of a bodily state which takes its meaning and labels in good part from cognitive and social fac-tors.96

Not only has the phenomenon been documented in studies such as the Blumer Report, but it is clear from talking to almost any user of marijuana that the cool culture of nonviolence, live and let live, and of being "beautiful" is the dominant attitude felt to be appropriate to marijuana smoking. Despite the opinions of their elders on the way marijuana smokers are supposed to be-have and feel, most of those who use marijuana feel that, under the influence of the drug, aggression is most "uncool." Moreover, although the feeling has grown up, at least in our culture, that one is not quite responsible for what he does under the influence of alcohol, this is not true among the marijuana-users. The con-venient "black-out," whereby one can simply forget his misbe-haviors under alcohol, has no analogue with respect to marijuana use. Whether or not there are scientifically doctunented reports of people actually taking in so much marijuana that they did not remember what they had done, the users of marijuana do not believe this can happen and hence feel there is no way of escaping responsibility for behavior under the influence of marijuana.

Laboratory Experimentation

Along with the sociological concomitants of use of a given drug, we must, of course, consider its pharmacological effects. Here, animal experimentation supplies some data, despite the fact that, with respect to marijuana, animal experimentation is a most inadequate indicator of human response. It is true, however, that animal experiments seem to provide a rough guide to the effect on human aggression of other psychoactive drugs such as alcohol, the barbiturates, the amphetamines, the opiates, and cocaine. If this guide is of any value in the case of marijuana, we can say with some confidence that, pharmacologically, mari-juana acts as an inhibitor of aggression. Thus one researcher has reported that

Although it is unable to modify the gross behavior of mice and rats, hashish extract can be defined as a "sedative" preparation. Examples of this effect are the reduced spontaneous locomotor activity, the potentiation of barbiturates, and its anti-aggressive activity."

In another experiment, the researcher divided mice into two groups: those that showed aggression by invariably attacking in-truders into their cages, and those that did not. Both groups were treated with extracts of marijuana in varying strengths, with tests being performed to make sure that the amount of marijuana used was not so large as merely to inhibit motor activity. The researcher reported that

It is seen that cannabis when applied 15 minutes before testing did not increase the aggressiveness of nonfighter mice; on the contrary, a marked reduction in fighting time was observed even with the smaller dose of 2.5 mg/kg. On the other hand, the motor activity was not seriously affected; even when a reduction of 80 per cent in aggressiveness was obtained (10 mg/kg), the motor activity re-mained practically the same.98

For the aggressive mice, the suppression of aggression was even more noticeable, reaching a maximum between one and two hours after administration of the drug, although seven hours after the injection the mice had not recovered aggressiveness completely." As a result the authors reported the taming effect of marijuana on aggressive mice."°

Of course, these laboratory experiments are by no means weighty enough to determine important issues of social policy. This is so notwithstanding the fact that the only information we have from human experimentation seems to support the same conclusion. In Hollister, Richards, and Gillespie's laboratory ex-periments on THC, their subjects showed a decline in aggression on a mood measurement test."'

On the other hand, what is clear is that neither animal nor human experimentation gives any support to the view that mari-juana causes aggression and, together with the mass of other evidence we have on the issue, both help somewhat to support the conclusion that, so far as we can determine today, marijuana as presently used in the United States is more likely to decrease aggression than to increase it. More important, as far as the issue of social policy is concerned, the free use in oUr society of other drugs, which are at least as likely to cause aggression as marijuana, would indicate that, whatever reasons there are for the criminalization of marijuana, the connection between the drug and aggressive crime should not be considered one of them.

Summary

Historically, the most significant argument for the prohibition of marijuana use has been that the drug causes its users to commit violent crimes. In the United States, marijuana was linked to aggressiveness when it first began to attract public attention in 1926, and this was the main argument used by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and its director, Harry J. Anslinger, in their successful campaign for the enactment of state and fed-eral antimarijuana laws.

The evidence relied upon by the Bureau of Narcotics con-sisted largely of lists of specific "marijuana crimes"—violent acts alleged to be attributable to marijuana use. Lists of such crimes are invalid as evidence of a relationship between marijuana and aggression for several reasons: (1) no attempts were made in any of the cases cited to determine whether marijuana was actu-ally the cause of the crime; (2) in 1936, the vast majority of marijuana-users were the most delinquent members of our mi-nority groups, who would be expected to commit violent crimes quite apart from their use of marijuana; and (3) there was no attempt to compare the "marijuana crimes" with either the num-ber of marijuana smokers who did not commit violent crimes or the number of those who did not use marijuana but nonetheless committed violent crimes.

In addition to lists of marijuana crimes, several statistical studies are cited by advocates of a causal relationship between marijuana and aggression. Most of these were done in under-developed countries, however, and the transferability of their con-clusions to the more affluent and stable United States is doubtful. More important, all of the studies suffer from such serious meth-odological problems as to make them almost worthless.

Statements of law-enforcement officers have also provided an important source of support for the marijuana-causes-aggression theory. The only systematic study of these statements, however, indicates (1) that there are a number of explanations for the feel-ings of police officers on this question that do not include a causal relationship between marijuana and aggression, and (2) that police, in fact, have no evidence that any observed fre-quency of aggressiveness on the part of those believed to be under the influence of marijuana has anything to do with the effects of the drug.

Other often-cited evidence of the aggressive effects of mari-juana has been the etymology of the word "assassin." The word was supposed to have been derived from the Arabic name "hashashin," given to a sect because its members smoked hashish before going out on rampages of violence and murder. However, even this bit of evidence is apparently invalid: two recent studies indicate that the connection between any killings by the Assassins and the drug hashish was so tenuous as to be of no relevance to the issue.

A number of studies have concluded that there is no rela-tionship between marijuana use and aggression. The most impressive of these is that of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893-94--despite the fact that, for various reasons, one would expect any relationship between marijuana and aggression to be stronger in India than in the United States. In the United States studies on college campuses and among minority groups show fairly clearly that marijuana is far less conducive to violence than alcohol, a matter that is discussed at greater length in Chap-ter VIII. There are, of course, some methodological problems in these studies, but they are considerably less than in those cited in favor of a marijuana-aggressiveness relationship.

Until there is a reasonable explanation for one effect or the other, one should accept a causal relationship neither between marijuana and aggressiveness nor between marijuana and passiv-ity. No such reasonable explanation has been advanced by the advocates of the former theory, but there are several, explana-tions for the latter. First, the effects of drugs depend, to a con-siderable extent, on what their users expect from them; most marijuana-users expect a "cool," passive feeling, and as pointed out in Chapter III, this is what they get. Second, controlled lab-oratory experiments, though not strongly probative on the issue, do tend to support the view that marijuana has an antiaggressive effect.

Although these explanations are far from conclusive, the total evidence on the issue does support the view that marijuana inhibits rather than increases aggression. And the widespread use in our society of drugs such as alcohol and barbiturates, which undeniably do increase aggression, shows further that the argument that marijuana causes aggression is not a supportable reason for the criminalization of this drug.

NOTES

1. See, e.g., New Orleans Item, Oct. 22, 1926, p. 1.
2. Anslinger, Harry J., with Courtney Cooper, "Assassin of Youth," The American Magazine, Vol. 124, July, 1937, p. 18.
3. Goode, Erich, "Marijuana and the Politics of Reality," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 10, No. 2, June, 1969, p. 87.
4. Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, Bureau of Nar-cotics (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 65.
5. Tampa Times, Oct. 18,1933, p. 1.
6. lbid.
7. Ibid.
8. ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Tampa Times, Oct. 20,1933, p. 11.
11. Tampa Times, Oct. 31,1933, p. 1.
12. St. Petersburg Evening Independent, Oct. 18, 1933, p. 12.
13. Tatnpa Times, Nov. 3,1933, p. 7.
14. Letter from Dr. C. A. Rich, Florida State Hospital, Dec. 30,1968.
15. Anslinger, H. J., Hearings Before the Committee on Ways & Means, House of Representatives, 75th Congress, 1st Session on H.R. 6385 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p. p.
16. Anslinger, H. J., The Murderers (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1960), p. 38.
17. Wolff, Pablo Osvaldo, Marijuana in Latin America: The Threat It Constitutes (Washington: The Linacre Press, Inc., 1949), pp. 35- 36.
18. Munçh, James C., "Marijuana and Crime," United Nations Bul-letin on Narcotics, Vol. 18, No. 2, April-June, 1966, pp. 15-22.
19. Ibid., p. 19.
20. Goode, op. cit., p. 88.
21. Anslinger, Hearings ... H.R. 6385, p. 11.
22. Gardikas, C. G., "Hashish and Crime," Enkephalos, Vols. 2-3, 1950.
23. Miller, Donald E., "Narcotic Drug and Marijuana Controls," in Hollander, Charles, ed., Background Papers on Student Drug In-volvement (Washington, D.C.: United States National Student Association, 1967), p. 142.
24. Gardikas, op. cit., p. 203.
25. Although Professor Gardikas does not tell us whether his subjects were all sentenced, he does tell us that they were "either sentenced or arrested flagrante delicto" and hence it is not an unreasonable assumption that the great majority of the 170 (the 117 plus the 53 who were involved in no further criminality) who allegedly were not previously criminals had served jail terms for their hashish offenses.
26. Wolff, op. cit., p. 30.
27. "Marijuana Smoking in Panama," The Military Surgeon (Nov., 1933).
28. Ibid., p. 274.
29. Ibid., p. 279.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., quoted at p. 274.
33. Ibid., p. 280.
34. Wolff, op. cit., foreword by H. J. Anslinger.
35. Ibid., pp. 52-53.
36. Bouquet, J., "Cannabis," United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics, Vol. 3, No. 1, Jan., 1951, pp. 22-45.
37. Ibid., p. 37.
38. Michelson, Twain, "Lindesmith's Mythology," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 31, Nov.-Dec., 1940, pp. 375-400.
39. Asuni, T., "Socio-Psychiatric Problems of Cannabis in Nigeria," United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics, Vol. XVI, No. 2, April-June, 1964, p. 17.
40. Ibid., p. 26.
41. Lambo, T. A., "Medical & Social Problems of Drug Addiction in West Africa," United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics, Vol. XVII, No. 1, Jan.-March, 1965, p. 3.
42. Ibid., pp. 10-11.
43. Vogel, Victor H., unpublished study at the California Rehabilita-tion Center during release hearing beginning August 18,1967, sent to the Commissioner of Narcotics in Sept., 1967.
44. Letter from Dr. John C. Kramer, July 26,1968.
45. Schofield, Glen W., "Marijuana: Its Relation to Aggressive Be-havior," (1968), pp. 11-22.
46. See Wolfgang and Ferracuti, The Subculture of Violence (Tavi-stock, 1967), p. 264.
47. Anslinger, "Assassin of Youth," p. 18.
48. Fossier, A. E., "The Marijuana Menace," New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Oct., 1931, p. 84.
49. Wolf, W., "Uncle Sam Fights New Drug Menace: Marijuana," Popular Science Monthly, May, 1936, p. 119.
50. Louria, Donald B., Nightmare Drugs (New York: Pocket Books Inc., 1966), p. 36.
51. Bloomquist, E. R., Marijuana (Beverly Hills: Glencoe Press, 1968), p. 27.
52. Mandel, J., "Hashish, Assassins and the Love of God," Issues in Criminology, Vol. 2,1966, pp. 149-56.
53. Ibid., p. 155.
54. Ibid., p. 153.
55. Casto, D., "Marijuana and the Assassins, An Etymological Investi-gation" (1969).
56. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
57. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-94 (re-printed, Silver Springs, Md.: Thomas Jefferson Publishing Co., 1969).
58. Ibid., p. 1.
59. Ibid., p. 3.
60. Mikuriya, T. H., "Physical, Mental and Moral Effects of Mari-juana," International Journal of the Addictions, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall, 1968, p. 253.
61. Report . . . Hemp Drugs Commission, p. 256.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., p. 258.
65. Ibid., p. 263.
66. Ibid., p. 264.
67. Cannabis, Report by the Advisory Committee on Drug Depend-ence, London, 1968.
68. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
69. Ibid., p. 14.
70. Ibid., p. 13.
71. Bromberg, Walter, "Marijuana Intoxication-A Clinical Study of Cannabis Sativa Intoxication," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 91,1934, p. 302.
72. Ibid., p. 309.
73. Allentuck, Samuel, and Bowman, K., "The Psychiatric Aspects of Marijuana Intoxication," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 99,1942, pp. 248-51.
74. Bromberg, Walter, and Rogers, Terry, "Marijuana and Aggressive Crime," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 102, 1946, pp. 825-27.
75. Maurer and Vogel, Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction, 3d ed. (Springfield, Ill.: Charles Thomas, 1967), p. 281.
76. Blum, Richard H., Students and Drugs (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969), p. 151.
77. This may, however, no longer be the case. It is possible that with increasing use of methamphetamine by a relatively small number of students the number of assaultive crimes has risen while the per-centage attributable to alcohol has fallen.
78. Crime and Delinquency in California, Bureau of Criminal Sta-tistics (1967), p. 257. Of course this does not mean that these were the only crimes committed by students at these schools. On the other hand if marijuana were such an instigator of violence even in a small percentage of its users, one would expect a vastly higher rate of campus arrests than actually exist. See Morgan, Douglas J., "Marijuana and Aggression, A Statistical Study" (1969).
79. Crime in California 1962, Compiled by the Bureau of Criminal Statistics, State of California, Department of Justice, Division of Law Enforcement (June, 1963), pp. 36-37.
80. See Chapter III, pp. 81-82.
81. Schofield, op. cit., pp. 43-44.
82. Ciesla, Thomas, Testimony before California Senate Public Health and Safety Committee, October 18,1967 (morning section), pp. 110-111.
83. Time (Atlantic Edition), Aug. 29,1969, p. 40.
84. The Economist, Aug. 30,1969, p. 31.
85. Letter from Emanuel Messinger to John Presmont, Nov. 6,1957.
86. Blumer, Herbert, and others, Add Center Project Final Report: The World of Youthful Drug Use (Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia, 1967).
87. Ibid., p. 14.
88. Ibid., p. 27.
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid., p. 29.
91. Ibid., p. 30.
92. Interview with Roger Smith, Schofield, op. cit., p. 49.
93. Blumer, op. cit., p. 26.
94. Giordano, Henry L., "The Prevention of Drug Abuse," Humanist, March–April, 1968, p. 22.
95. Bloomquist, Edward R., Testimony before California Senate Pub-lic Health and Safety Committee, October 18, 1967 (afternoon session), p. 22.
96. Schachter, Stanley, "The Interaction of Cognitive and Physio-logical Determinants of Emotional State," Advances ln Experi-mental Psychology, Leonard Berkowitz, ed. (New York: Aca-demic Press Inc., 1964), p. 78.
97. Garattini, S., "Effects of a Cannabis Extract on Gross Behavior," Hashish: Its Chemistry and Pharmacology, Wolstenholme and Knight, eds., Ciba Foundation Study Group, no. 21, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), pp. 75-77.
98. Ibid., pp. 75-76.
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid.
101. Hollister, Leo E., Richards, Richard K., and Gillespie, H. K., "Comparison of Tetrahydrocannabinol and Synhexyl in Man," Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Vol 9, No. 6, 1968, pp. 783,788.