In 1937, four years after the repeal of Prohibition, Congress outlawed the sale, possession, or use of marijuana.' Many people today are having second thoughts about this decision.

Prohibition had been the nation's most ambitious effort at drug control—since alcohol is, by any pharmacological definition, a drug. Our experience from 1920 to 1933, however, had demonstrated that as bad as a drug might be, there could be laws that were worse. If nothing else, Prohibition had taught us that a law is in essence society's purchase of a package of social effects. Its wisdom depends on the same kind of criteria that de-termine whether a manufacturer should put out a new product. The crucial questions are: (1) what are the total social and financial costs attributable to the law, and (2) what are the benefits that flow from this outlay?

It may, of course, be very difficult to answer these questions. First, it is hard to measure with precision the costs of laws, especially the human costs. And second, aside from more or less intelligent guesses, we are usually uncertain of the benefits of laws. Except for dramatic examples such as Prohibition, we usu-ally do not give the matter much thought. Usually, it is clear that the disadvantages of alternative policies or the benefits of our present course of action make its costs worthwhile. The im-portant thing to note, however, is that all laws have their costs.

In this book, we will weigh the costs and benefits of what is called the criminalization of marijuana. So as not to generate unnecessary suspense, however, it is best to acknowledge right here the conclusion reached after this weighing process: that the costs of the marijuana laws far outweigh their benefits and that a drastic change in our whole approach to this problem is necessary to avoid a national tragedy of major proportions.

The cost side of the analysis is dealt with primarily in Chapter II, though some additional costs of the marijuana laws come out of the discussion in subsequent chapters. Before taking up the benefits of the marijuana laws, however, we will discuss, in Chapter III, the nature and effects of what might be called the ordinary use of marijuana. This will give perspective to the rest of the book both by showing something of the view the marijuana-user takes of his drug and by providing a base line from which the discussion of the harmful effects of the drug can be better appreciated.

The benefit side of the analysis then consumes most of the rest of the book. Since the benefits of the criminalization of marijuana depend both upon how much this policy decreases the use of the drug and upon the degree of harm the drug does its* user arid society, we must go into both of these issues. We will discuss the former in a number of places throughout the book, but primarily in Chapter IX. The latter, because of the variety of harms alleged to proceed from marijuana use, takes considerably more space.
Chapter IV considers the extent to which marijuana causes its user to commit violent and aggressive crimes; Chapter V, the types and degrees of harm that the drug may inflict upon its users; Chapter VI, the connection between the use of marijuana and that of what are called the dangerous drugs—the amphetamines, the barbiturates, and the hallucinogens; and Chapter VII, the likelihood that marijuana causes its user to progress to heroin addiction.

After this discussion of the factors entering into the costs and benefits of the marijuana laws, there are three concluding chapters. Chapter VIII places the discussion of marijuana in a more familiar context by analyzing the similarities and differences between alcohol and marijuana; Chapter IX discusses the alternatives to criminalization that would reach a better balance between the costs and benefits of the marijuana laws; and the final chapter, Chapter X, is concerned with the obstacles to reaching a more rational solution of the marijuana problem.

Before going on to these issues, however, it will be helpful to examine one important threshold topic. Though the criminalization of marijuana is typically justified on the ground that the effectiveness of the law or the dangers of the drug make the costs of criminalization worthwhile, it will become clear as we proceed that for many people the issue is far from this pragmatic. Indeed, proceeding through the book one will note that the arguments minimizing the costs and enhancing the benefits of the marijuana laws are often so transparently flimsy that one can hardly believe they have been put forward seriously.

And when one considers not only the weakness of these arguments but also the vigor and certainty with which they have been presented, it becomes clear that there are issues buried in the debate on marijuana that transcend the question of what to do with that drug. Marijuana, in fact, has become the symbol of a host of major conflicts in our society, each of which exacerbates any attempt at a rational solution to the problem.

The Symbolic Function of the Law

To understand how issues other than the costs and benefits of the law intrude into the marijuana question, we must appreciate the symbolic function of the law. Not only does the criminal law exert direct controls on behavior through deterrence and through removal of offenders from the community, but it often has a far broader impact. Even where the law does not inhibit illegal behavior, it stamps as less worthy, personally, those who engage in that behavior and, more significantly, stamps as inferior those groups that tolerate the behavior.

Professor Joseph R. Gusfield's major study of the enactment of Prohibition has revealed that a great part of the sentiment behind the passage of the Prohibition Amendment was not par-icularly concerned with the enforcement of that law.2 Prohibition, according to Gusfield, resulted largely from pressure by the white rural Protestants to have made illegal a practice that they associated primarily with the urban Roman Catholics. It was by no means only the drinking behavior of the urban Roman Catholics that came in for rural Protestant censure; rather it was their entire life-style, including, of course, their Catholicism. It was only their drinking behavior, however, which could be so easily considered immoral, shown to involve all sorts of physical, psychological, and social dangers, and banned. An important part of Prohibition, then, was the "official statement" that the urban Catholic somehow was less an American than the rural Protestant. With this statement enshrined in law, many of the rural Protestants considered their moral views sufficiently vindicated, and hence lost interest in the enforcement of the law.

The Life-Style of the Marijuana-User

The symbolic meaning of marijuana, to be sure, affects not only the non-users but the users of the drug as well. Indeed, it probably affects them more pervasively. In this chapter, however, we will examine the issue primarily from the viewpoint of the non-using majority of Americans. Although the ideology of at least some advocates of marijuana use may increase the public health problem, and certainly makes rational discourse more dif-ficult, it is not a crucial obstacle to reform of the law. For our purposes here, the symbolic meaning of the law is more important than that of the drug.

Today a great part of the objection to marijuana use is not based upon any effect of the drug, but rather upon the entire life-style that many associate with it. The public mind often conceives of the marijuana-user as a long-haired hippie, and even those sophisticated enough to realize the oversimplicity of this view often associate marijuana use with a life-style and set of values very different from their own.

In a large portion of our population, then, marijuana is associated with a life-style focusing on immediate experience, present rather than delayed gratification, noncompetitiveness and lessened interest in the acquisition of wealth. And even if one is not prepared to use even stronger terms, such as irresponsibility, laziness, and a lack of patriotism, there is no doubt that the life-style, like the use of the drug itself, involves a disregard for many of the conventions that the older society regards as dear. It is hardly surprising, then, that many people will wish strongly that the criminalization of marijuana be retained if only as a reminder to marijuana-users—and indeed to many who do not use mari-juana but who are like users in other ways—that this life-style and these values are less worthy.

That moral opposition to a life-style inhibits any change in the marijuana laws is clear from many sources. Glen W. Schofield his study of police views on the connection between mari-juana and aggression found, to his surprise, that this was not a major reason why those enforcing the law felt the marijuana laws should be maintained.

The main evil and danger which these officers felt was pre-sented by wide-spread use of marijuana was the creation and per-petuation of a life-style and set of attitudes and actions which was contrary to the values of the society as a whole. Their comments were not this obvious, but the import of what they said was the same. They picture marijuana as a central tenet and foundation, and in some cases as the cause, of a way of life which they com-pletely disapprove of. For them, marijuana leads to a life character-ized by irresponsibility, escapism, long hair, dirty clothes, and immoral activity. From these sixteen interviews, each lasting from 25 to 40 minutes, it could be determined that these officers were generally clean-cut, hard-working individuals.....All had worked their way up from the "beat" to investigative and supervisory positions of responsibility. All seemed very competent and very well meaning. All conceived of themselves as public servants, with the experience to know that the type of life-style and culture which the use of marijuana promotes is not good for those involved, nor for the society as a whole.

[Officer H.] said, "One afflicted with the drug culture endangers his own health and that of those around him. Also, they just don't contribute." [Officer I.] pictures the main danger as one to the individual's personality, and the general lack of any interest or direction in the person's life. "They get a new set of values. They're generally against everything and not for anything. . . ."3

Although one can easily understand why the life-style that Schofield's policemen associate with marijuana use may meet with disapproval, this by no means explains the vehemence of the reaction against marijuana. The answer may in part be that al-though the association between the life-style and marijuana is in fact quite tenuous, the issues associated with the life-style involve some of the most emotion-producing areas of conflict in our society.

Pleasure

The most obvious symbolic issue involving marijuana has to do with the ambiguous position that we assign to pleasure our society. As will become clear in Chapter III, people use marijuana primarily because they enjoy it. Taking a drug for enjoyment raises a host of problems, for our culture still retains strong over-tones of our Puritan forebears, who took a dim view of anything that gave pleasure except diligence and honest labor. Indeed, according to Macaulay's famous remark, the Puritans objected to bear-baiting not so much because it caused pain to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Pleasure, it is often felt, is an abnegation of responsibility, an escape from the cares that should be with us. This, of course, is not to say that we do not engage in many activities solely for pleasure. We do, but we attempt to justify them as far as possible on other grounds—that the activity, such as golf, gets one out in the fresh air and supplies healthy exercise, or that it provides relaxation from the cares of the day so that we can return re-freshed to continue our work at even greater efficiency. When it cannot be so explained away, pleasure is treated apologetically and we feel somehow that it is wrong.

The use of a drug for pleasure arouses even greater anxie-ties. Putting aside the case of alcohol—which most people refuse to recognize as a drug—we feel that there are two great profanations in the use of drugs for pleasure. First, this type of drug use conjures up visions neither of the cocktail party nor of the social marijuana high described in Chapter III. Rather, it recalls the opium den where one escapes not temporarily but permanently into drug-induced reveries that are so pleasant that they call us to account for our choice of the duller, more ugly, and mundane life we ourselves lead.

Second, the use of drugs, it is felt, is a prerogative of the healing professions, which use their knowledge and power to lessen human misery. Since marijuana, as is often pointed out, has no medical use, its "recreational" use is an additional profana-tion of health for mere pleasure.

The issue of pleasure would not arouse nearly so much emotion if we really had the courage of our Puritan convictions. In fact, however, we may feel down deep that we are-working too hard and that we do not get enough pleasure out of life. We resent the fact that the young are growing up in a world where machines do more and more of the work, leisure time increases, and pleasure becomes both more available and more respecta-ble. It is thus a double affront that marijuana-users not only can derive pleasure from their drug but also can do so with consid-erably less guilt than we would feel in undertaking our own far more conventional and innocent pleasures.

Radicalism

Marijuana to some is the symbol of yet another strain in our society—that of radicalism. Like most of the other symbolic aspects of marijuana use, the nexus is not a completely irra-tional one. When marijuana use was just becoming a middle-class phenomenon, around the beginning of the sixties, the first middle-class users of the drug tended to be far more radical politically than their fellows, perhaps because they were so ali-enated from society that they could ignore one of its most severe criminal laws. And though, as marijuana use became more wide-spread, the ranks of the users came to include every political persuasion, it is still true that on the average, middle-class mari-juana-users are considerably more likely to be liberal, just as they are more likely to have no formal religion and to come from wealthier and better-educated families.

In any event, regardless of whether it is in fact true, many people connect the willingness to use marijuana in defiance of society's dictates with a willingness to overthrow the established institutions of that society. Note, for instance, how neatly the fol-lowing newspaper story manages to tie together these concerns:

REAGAN ATTACKS YOUTH'S DRUG ABUSE

Rebellion, contempt for their elders and even subversive ele-ments are behind a "near epidemic" use of drugs by California youth, according to the Reagan Administration. . . .

Flanking Reagan at a news conference were Lt. Gov. Ed Reinecke and Dr. Edward R. Bloomquist of Glendale, who chairs an interagency council on drug abuse sponsored jointly by state government and the California Medical Association.

"Subversive elements have found that drugs can be invaluable," Bloomquist said.

Asked to explain, the doctor said he has talked with student demonstrators who admitted their "inhibitions" had been released through drugs supplied them by anarchists. . . .4

Permissiveness

Marijuana also is associated strongly with another issue with which our society has not come fully to terms, that of permis-siveness. Many people are deeply disturbed at the increased toleration extended to types of behavior that only a decade or two ago would have been firmly suppressed. There is powerful opposition to the view that one should be permitted to do any-thing he pleases so long as it does not harm others. People who are not really harmed may nonetheless be deeply offended. And offended they are at the nudity as well as the crudity allowed on the stage; the obscenity permitted in writing; and the sexual free-dom, if not promiscuity, that they feel characterizes a substantial portion of today's society.

The objection to permissiveness extends beyond the sexual area. Indeed, the word "permissive" is most often applied to the upbringing of today's younger generation and to their parents, who not only tolerate the misbehavior of their children but continue to support those whose education is completed, who could, if they chose, eam their own living. And, of course, among the most blatant examples of permissiveness is the taking of drugs.

Reasoning based on opposition to permissiveness is generally easy to recognize. It typically asks, "If we allow this, why don't we allow just everything," or proceeds along similar apocalyptic lines. Thus, as stated by Henry Giordano, then head of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, to a Congressional committee:

All I can say is that it will be a sad day when somebody decides to legalize marijuana, because what is the next step? What do we legalize next?

I think we get involved with morals, public health, and a few other things here. I am afraid this is just another effort to break down our whole American system.5

And even where the reasoning is more specifically directed to our drug laws rather than to the general issue of permissive-ness, the "what next" quality is not very different. Dr. Donald B. Louria, President of the New York State Council on Drug Ad-diction, argues that,

If we are to legalize marijuana, why stop there? . . . Clearly the line must be drawn somewhere, or else, as our pharmacological cornucopia provides us with an increasing number of hallucino-gens, euphoriants, and stimulants, we will be so burdened with intoxicants that inevitably we will reach a stage at which society cannot function.6

Of course, Mr. Giordano could easily distinguish, if he wished, between marijuana use and robbery, rape, and a host of other prohibitions that we consider necessary to the "whole American system." And Dr. Louria has written elsewhere on the differing effects and dangers of a host of other drugs, each of which, in those contexts, he has no trouble differentiating from marijuana.

If, however, one feels that the issue is not marijuana but permissiveness, the line must be drawn at every point where it is under attack. And if the forces felt to support permissiveness are making their attack on the issue of marijuana, it is there that the line must be most vigorously drawn.

Authority

Another issue that divides our society is that of respect for authority. This, of course, is by no means unique to the present. An Egyptian hieroglyphic of some four thousand years ago la-mented the fact that "children no longer obey their parents," and Socrates himself complained that Greek youth had lost its respect for the law, for man, and for the gods. Nonetheless, both the prevalence of the sit-in and the questioning attitude, if not out-right hostility, of large sections of our population to the exercise of authority seem to make the proper respect for authority a major issue today.

Marijuana is a convenient symbol of this issue for several reasons. Most obviously, those who use the drug do so in defiance of our two major organs of authority: their parents and the state. Moreover, attacks on the marijuana laws are, unlike use of the drug, more than a mere evasion of authority. Such attacks con-stitute, in a way, a flat challenge to that authority, and the stronger the case for the repeal of the marijuana laws, the stronger the challenge. After all, to many this is merely a way of saying that the legitimate organs of society have been wrong—and those who flouted them right—about the dangers of the drug. The issue, as will be seen, is much more complex than this; symbols, however, do not portray complexity, and as a result, the issue of authority has become very much entwined with that of marijuana.

Law and Order

Closely related to that of authority is the issue of law and order. Although in political terms it means far more than this, the current political power of the law-and-order issue involves two major societal problems—first, the fears of many of our citizens over the prevalence of violent crime in the streets; and second, the conflict between the struggle of the Negro for equality and the conservative restraints of the law. Marijuana, however, is drawn into this symbolism as well. First of all, since the drug is illegal, all those who use it are already violating the law. Since proponents of law and order are, by the very way they phrase the issue, unlikely to make distinctions among laws, they tend to equate involvement with marijuana with even the more emotional elements that comprise the law-and-order issue.

It is not only law and order as an abstract principle that adds to the emotional content of the marijuana issue; the deep emotional involvement of a large number of law-enforcement agents is of great importance in the attitude of their supporters among the public. Since marijuana use has been a serious crime under the laws of every state and of the federal government, large numbers of law-enforcement agents have worked for the suppression of the drug and the incarceration of its users. To them, the attack upon the marijuana laws is a statement not only that their efforts to suppress the drug have failett—a fact which they already know and about which they feel quite keenly—but also that in attempting to enforce the law they have been doing society more harm than good. It often turns out that the more effort 4 man has expended on a project, the harder it is for him to admit that he has failed or that it hasn't been worth the effort. Arguments that one should cut his losses and get out rarely find receptive ears among those doing the losing.

Entirely apart from the effort of law enforcement to justify its actions, there has grown up a polarization of attitudes betWeen law-enforcement agents and marijuana-users very different from the understanding that often exists between police and other crimi-nals. Policemen resent the superior and condescending attitude that they feel marijuana-users reserve for them—a resentment quite easy to understand if the view of the police attributed to one marijuana dealer is at all common:

The police don't bust Mafia dealers. The cops are too busy playing games with little people who just, like, go home and smoke a joint. But I guess these people are a threat. They look pretty scary in their long hair and nasty clothes and things like that (laughs). And besides a cop can't understand, when you get some dumb cop--even some smart cop, they're still dumb—but they can't understand how these long-haired faggot commie pinkos can, like, even get laid. . . . I think this has a lot to do with it. Because the drug movement is so sexual. These people, they just can't understand how this happens. And this really insults this cop. Seriously, 'cuz he's probably having trouble getting it from his wife once a week. And this whole thing—jealousy, man, is an animal instinct.7

And though perhaps this quotation is not representative, policemen tend to associate marijuana use with this attitude and it escalates further the emotion symbolized by the marijuana issue.

Drug Use

Another symbol tied into the marijuana controversy is that of drug use. It sounds, of course, strange to refer to this as a symbol since, after all, drug use is what the actual controversy is all about. Nonetheless, the question as to the most rational treatment of marijuana has strong symbolic overtones. First of all, entirely apart from any danger of marijuana, the drug is illegal and hence symbolically associated with much more feared illegal drugs such as LSD and heroin. People who fail to draw distinctions among illegal drugs, despite the fact that there are enormous differences among them, will react to suggestions that the laws against marijuana be relaxed as if the issue involved very different and far more dangerous drugs.

More important, perhaps, drug abuse is by no means con-fmed to those who use illicit drugs such as marijuana. Alcohol and prescribed barbiturates and amphetamines are abused by large sections of the population who are repelled and frightened at the use of the illicit drugs. Many who have deep anxieties about their use of legal drugs seem able somehow to deny to themselves that they have a drug problem. They draw a line be-tween drugs that are harmful and the "harmless non-drugs" that they use. Quite naturally, then, they are upset about attempts to blur this line by moving marijuana from the former to the latter class. And when such a move is defended in part by the often-heard idea that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol (an issue that we will examine in Chapter VIII), the affront is even greater.

The emotion that this generates is apparent from a host of sources. Thus according to Time, when anthropologist Margaret Mead

... asserted that marijuana is less toxic than tobacco and is milder than booze [and that] there is the adult with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other telling the child, "You cannot,"

the reaction from Governor Claude Kirk of Florida was that

"Kids are taught patriotism and morality in the classroom, but when they get home they see a television set with this dirty old lady on it."8

Finally, even when they have no great anxiety about their own drug use, alcohol-users may resent the users of marijuana—who often assert the superiorities not only of their drug but also of its users.

The Generation Gap

The issues we have already mentioned—pleasure, radicalism, permissiveness, authority, law and order, and differ-ing patterns of drug use—are related to and overlap each other. And they are by no means the only issues symbolized by marijuana. One could go on at some length to list other sources of stress in our society that also add some of their emotional content to the mari-juana issue—including perhaps even the issues dividing the "silent majority" from what therefore presumably must be called the "noisy minority." After all, according to Time, "the Freedom Rally . . . in response to the President's TV appeal for 'the silent majority' to speak up" roared approval to:

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee.

We don't take our trips on LSD,

We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street,

'Cause we like living right and being free.°

For the most part, however, the divisions over marijuana, like those we have already discussed, can be included within one even more basic conflict—the generation gap.

It is true that any pluralistic society must endure disagree-ments between differing subcultures, and conflict between the old and the young is an attribute of all but the most stagnant socie-ties. Despite this, it is hard to escape the feeling that today's conflict between the young and the old over methods of expres-sion and values is deeper, more pervasive, and more emotional than in any previous era in our memory.

Professor Kenneth Kenniston, one of the most widely quoted writers on the problems of youth today, has blamed a great deal of this conflict on the fact that the common picture of the marijuana-user as

. . long-haired, self-indulgent, dirty, lazy, and morally depraved —is a perfect symbol for a whole set of other adult anxieties. As a result, "drugs on the campus" has joined a cluster of other "problems" that most concern those outdistanced by the modern world: Fluoridation, law and order, "filth peddling," the "decline" of patriotism, crime in the streets, "softness," internal subversion, and so on."

Although there is some measure of truth to this, it is most unfair to attribute the deep anxiety over present-day youth to "those outdistanced by the modem world." The fact is that al-most any sober observer can find a good deal to upset him in many aspects of youth culture today.

Perhaps we can take, philosophically, behavior by tlie young that seems deliberately designed for the primary purpose of up-setting and outraging their elders. It is hard, however, to over-look the profound disillusionment on the part of many of the young with institutions as fundamental to our society as the po-litical processes, the educational system, and private enterprise, even when this is not accompanied by any particularly outrageous action. And in all probability an even greater source of conflict is the great difference in basic values that seems to have grown up between the younger and older generations.

There is, of course, a good deal of dispute over the nature of the reasons for these differences. Some have attributed the changes in youth to varied causes such as affluence and lack of financial worries, permissive upbringing, the rapid pace of social change, the fear of nuclear destruction, and the advent of tele-vision. Others, more sympathetic to the viewpoint of the young, have attributed changes in values to the fact that present-day in-stitutions based on the older generation's values have suffered some conspicuous failures, such as the continued existence of racism and poverty, increasing environmental pollution, and the Vietnam war.

In any event, whatever the cause, commentators have been nearly unanimous in agreeing that the values of younger people today more often include a resentment of authority; an emphasis on the here and now, as distinguished from the more Puritan focus on the future; a heavy stress on experience for the sake of experience; a concern with the internal world of thought and emotion rather than the external material world; and finally, a valuing of what many elders would consider an irresponsible freedom to "do one's thing."

This is not to say that all young people today are domi-nated by these values; indeed, only a relative few are—including, however, the very conspicuous dropouts into the hippie culture. On the other hand, a large number of youths--especially among the middle class and more affluent sectors of our society—have been strongly influenced in one degree or another by the increased attraction of these values.

Marijuana is perhaps the perfect symbol of this generational conflict. Most people do not appreciate the degree to which the cleavage occurs between groups only a few years apart in age. Note, tor instance, a poll taken at the tenth reunion of the Am-herst graduating class of 1959—among the last graduates prior to the beginning of middle-class marijuana use. The class itself seems very liberal: sentiment ran 131 to 1 for school integration, 115 to 17 for poverty programs, and 88 to 33 for pulling out of Vietnam. As to marijuana, however, there was a major dif-ference. the class stood 76 to 50 against relaxing the marijuana laws.11

The distance between the Kingston Trio and the Beatles, though just a few years in time, is great indeed. To an extent not often realized, the culture of the young has come to include either direct or vicarious experience with marijuana. The heroes of this generation of young people, who seem to have replaced the athlete heroes of twenty years ago, are the musicians—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the like. Not only for the most part do these models for the younger generation use marijuana, but they sing about it. In the words of two prominent sociologists,

Lyrics of popular songs refer to the drug itself or the drug experi-ence in barely coded terms, often coded just enough to establish an illusion of membership among the listeners. Elements of the music are described as having an additional message if the hearer is properly turned on.12

In addition, the heroes of the young have often gotten into celebrated trouble with the law over their marijuana use, and rather than showing contrition, they have sung of the hypocrisy of the older generation.

Marijuana has become a symbol of the young in other ways as well. The effects of the drug itself—relaxation and euphoria —seem for some reason to be what this serious, intense, and anxious generation most requires. Moreover, the young today are afflicted with a sense of distance from each other, a distance that they feel is somehow reduced while they sit around and share the effects of marijuana.

Finally, as we will see, the young regard the use of mari-juana as a safe method of acquiring an experience that, for all their parents' assertions about greater knowledge and familiarity with the world, their parents have not had and do not dare to try. It enables them to engage in a pleasant, safe rebellion, and is even more effective than the "new math" in allowing them to feel superior to their parents. The problem is, however, that their parents—and members of the older generation—know and resent this.

Of course, it is not only these characteristics and needs of youth that marijuana symbolizes. An older generation, perhaps somewhat sensitive to criticism on a host of issues and often genuinely dismayed at the questioning of values they hold precious, may well find it easy to displace their resentment onto marijuana and counterattack by showing the immorality of the young.

It is very convenient for adults to focus their dissatisfaction with the young upon something so foreign to themselves (providing they can ignore alcohol) as drugs. This not only explains the improper attitudes and behavior of youth, but does so in a way that absolves the adult world of any blame, so long, of course, as it does its best to stamp out marijuana.

Intercultural Conflict

The fact that marijuana is associated with a host of conflicts in our society greatly increases the emotional content of the issue. The situation is exacerbated further by the fact that these social conflicts are themselves seen as moral issues—thus making it more likely that marijuana use itself is seen in moral rather than pragmatic terms. We will see in Chapter VIII just how difficult it is to maintain that marijuana use itself is a moral issue. Nonetheless, whether an issue is seen as a moral or a pragmatic one depends on many factors—and is not often very important since most moral principles, such as those against stealing, are accepted throughout society. Where, however, the moral issue is not accepted uniformly throughout society, it intensifies conflict.

We have several examples of this type of intercultural con-flict. Some subcultures in our society, for instance, consider it morally wrong for a landlord to raise his rents merely because apartments are in short supply, while our dominant culture, except in areas of rent control, regards this as the operation of the basic law of supply and demand, entitled to no more condemna-tion than the law of gravity.

More relevant here, of course, some subcultures—we will discuss the size of these groups later—believe that the smoking of marijuana is a valuable means of relaxation, introspection, and sociability, while our dominant culture regards the drug as a threat to the public health and as a moral evil.

Any factual attack upon this majority view, in the words of Erich Goode,

poses a serious problem for those members of society who have an emotional investment in stability and in the legitimacy of their own special version of reality. The problem becomes then a matter of moral hegemony, of legitimating one's distinctive view of the world and of discrediting competing views.13

In short, we do not like to see other people defend something we regard as morally wrong, and if factually they are correct, this merely makes the affront worse.

The problem then can be summarized this way: so long as people are reacting to the symbolic content of marijuana use, they will regard marijuana smoking as morally wrong. And so long as they regard marijuana smoking as morally wrong, at least some of them will seek the aid of the law to prohibit the activity. This they will do for two reasons. First, the enforcement of the law by deterring some, incarcerating others, and lessening the opportunity for all, will make the immoral activity that much less common. Second, by having a condemnation of the activity enacted into law, they will both gain official recognition for their moral views and, through appeals to respect for the will of the electorate, add to the immorality of any contrary action.

Though one can recognize the symbolic and emotional overtones affecting the issue of marijuana, it is difficult to gauge their strength. The fact is that the majority of Americans who favor the criminalization of marijuana do so in the belief that the dangers of the drug are so great as to make the benefits of the marijuana laws outweigh their costs.

In all likelihood, as it becomes clear that this is not the case, many of these people will decide that the issue is not an emotional and symbolic one after all, but rather a very practical one. Others, like the many nondrinkers who supported the repeal of Prohibition, will adhere to their moral convictions but decide that society is paying too high a price for enacting their morality into law.

And finally, just as there remain Prohibitionists today, there will be those who are determined to force their morality upon others regardless of the cost to society.

To this last group, the dangers of marijuana and the cost of criminalizing the drug are irrelevant. It is to those in the first two groups—who are entitled to await with some skepticism the details of costs and benefits—that this book is addressed.

Summary

The wisdom of a law should be determined in pragmatic terms by weighing the costs it imposes upon society against the benefits it brings. The purpose of this book is to apply this principle to the laws criminalizing marijuana.

Law, of course, has aspects other than merely the utilitarian, and the symbolic aspect of the law is of major significance too. Thus, although a law may merely make a specific action criminal, it is, in fact, understood by both those in favor and those against it to symbolize attitudes toward the groups that do and do not violate the law. Just as Prohibition was interpreted as a statement about urban Roman Catholics made by rural Protestants, the marijuana laws are intimately related to a view of a particular life-style that many associate with marijuana use.

A major reason why the marijuana issue generates so much emotion both within families and in society at large is that the life-style and values that marijuana symbolizes to many people involve some of the most emotion-laden issues confronting the United States today.

These issues include the proper place of pleasure in our lives; the threat of radicalism, not only to our society but also to our values; the question of permissiveness and the proper degree of subordination of personal desires necessary to ensure survival of a civilized society; the necessity of obedience to au-thority, whether or not there is personal agreement with its commands; the issue of law and order, which not only includes respect for law enforcement in these difficult times but also has overtones of both crime in the streets and racial violence; and the strains caused by differing patterns of drug use, especially among those who, though not marijuana-users, have deep-seated worries about their own drug-taking patterns.

The most important area of conflict in our society that impinges upon the marijuana .issue is the generation gap. There are a great many reasons both valid and invalid (though it is no easy matter to tell one from the other) why the younger and older generations today are dissatisfied with each other. Marijuana forms an excellent vehicle by which the older is able not only to explain away the defects in the younger generation without taking responsibility for them, but also to attack the younger generation and show that for all their high pretensions they have their serious moral shortcomings too.

Indeed, the element of conflict between the culture of the young and that of the old makes it more likely that marijuana will be seen as a moral issue, divorced from pragmatic considera-tions such as the costs and benefits of the marijuana laws. As we will show in Chapter VIII, it is impossible, if one thinks about the matter, to regard marijuana use as a moral, as distinguished from a pragmatic, issue. Unfortunately, however, the emotional overlay of the problem makes it difficult to think hard about the issue.

Despite this, it is believed that, as in the case of Prohibition, a majority of Americans are interested in the pragmatic effect of the marijuana laws upon our society and that if they are convinced that the criminalization of marijuana is doing far more harm than good, they will move to change it. It is to them that this book is addressed.

NOTES

As will be noted, the footnotes contain citations of a considerable num-ber of unpublished works. Research in this field is moving forward at a great pace, and if a book is to be up-to-date at the time it is published it must, as it were, sight ahead of the published literature. The delay between completion of studies and getting them into final form is great enough; but it would be intolerable if one had to wait, as well, for the long process of submission to, acceptance by, and publication in scientific journals. In any event, all unpublished as well as published works cited here are on file in the Stanford Law School Library.

1. Technically, the Marijuana Tax Act, 26 U.S. Code 4741 ff. et seq., merely placed a prohibitive tax upon marijuana and made those involved with the drug guilty of a type of tax evasion. Despite arguments to the contrary, there was nothing especially devious about this; before the full development of the Congressional power over interstate commerce, "regulatory" taxation was a, standard method of extending federal control into an area.

2. Gusfield, J. R., Symbolic Crusade (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois, 1963).

3. Schofield, Glen W., "Marijuana: Its Relationship to Aggressive Behavior" (1968), p. 19.

4. San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 19,1969, p. 7.

5. Testimony of Henry Giordano, in Extracts on the Bureau 'of Narcotics from Hearings on Appropriations for the Treasury and Post Office Departments and the Executive Office for 1968 Before a Sub-committee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Repre-sentatives, 90th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 8,1967), pp. 404-405.

6. Louria, Donald B., The Drug Scene (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 116.

7. Goode, Erich, The Marijuana Smokers (New York: Basic books, 1970

8. Time (Atlantic Edition), Nov. 7,1969, p. 50.

9. Time (Atlantic Edition), Nov. 21, 1969, p. 27.

10. Kenniston, Kenneth, "Introduction," in Drugs on the College Campus, by Helen H. Nowlis (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), p. xvi.

11. Palo Alto Times, June 16,1969, p. 12.

12. Simon, William, and Gagnon, John H., "Children of the Drug Age," Saturday Review, Sept. 21,1968, p. 62.

13. Goode, Erich, "Marijuana and the Politics of Reality," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, V ol. 10, No. 2, June, 1969, p. 84.