12 Pot Heads

The Extent of Use

Several of the witnesses who appeared before the Wootton committee said that they smoked cacannabis1 and they were able to give useful information on different types of users. Although it was impossible to estimate the relative size of any of the groups they identified, it was clear that smoking pot had now spread from the original groups of immigrants, seamen and musicians to middle-class students and, more recently, to working-class youths. The proportion of coloured immigrants is probably not much higher than in the white indigenous population; the essential difference is that it is not thought to be a heinous crime in Pakistan or the West Indies to be found smoking pot. In all of these groups the extent of use varied from small to great. Although it is difficult to make arbitrary divisions, the most meaningful way of classifying pot smokers is according to the extent to which they use the drug — experimental, sporadic and regular.

At one end of this scale come the people who try it once or twice as_an experiment. A very large number stop there and never again use cannabis. Perhaps the experience was unpleasant or, more likely, dull and unexciting; perhaps further opportunities did not arise or were not thought to be worth the risk. It is plainly absurd to think of these as pot smokers, yet some researchers ask their subjects if they have ever taken cannabis. Thus people whose only experience is three or four drags at a communal joint are included in the total number of cannabis users.

Next in the continuum come the sporadic users who smoke on the rare occasions when they are with others using cannabis; for some this may be once a month, for others as little as once a year. It is possible to classify them all into one group because They make no effort to seek or possess cannabis; it is a pleasant, but dispensable and unimportant aspect of life.

These two groups of experimental and sporadic users are only important in two ways. At the time they are smoking they are just as vulnerable as any other user of an illegal drug; they may be arrested, imprisoned or given some other sentence with all the consequences of acquiring a criminal record, including a poor reputation and possible loss of employment. The second point is that the use of cannabis by these people is of no social concern, and is quite harmless, unless it can be shown that the experimental or sporadic user is likely to become a regular user.

There are two types of regular users. People in the first group smoke several times a week, perhaps at least once a day, but for most of their waking life they are not under the influence of the drug and are mixing with people who do not use cannabis. The others are the real pot heads, who are high almost all their waking hours. People who smoke as much as this will find that cannabis has become the central element in their lives. All their friends will use cannabis and they will want to be under the influence of the drug while working, resting, listening to music, having sexual intercourse or simply meditating; to be high will be their normal state.

These people used to be called pot heads, but the phrase has gradually been devalued by use in the vernacular and has lost its specific meaning, so that now any regular user of cannabis is called a head. The number of persons who are so completely involved in cannabis is very small. Goode (1969) estimates that extensive users are less than one per cent of all those who have ever tried cannabis. Dr Roger Smith, working in the Haight Ashbury clinic which ministered to what was probably the highest concentration of cannabis users ever known, told Kaplan (1970) that there were very few who took the drug in sufficient quantity to interfere with their functioning in the community.

Although the users have been classified into groups, individuals change in the extent of their use and move freely from one group to another — and the movement is not in one direction only. A sporadic user may increase his consumption, but equally a regular smoker may stop because it becomes risky to get further supplies or because other interests predominate.

Regular Users

Although extensive users of cannabis are very rare, it is understandable that much concern is expressed about such prolonged and excessive use. In chapter 3 reference was made to foreign 'r reports which suggested that long and heavy use of cannabis would lead to a general deterioration of the personality, but the evidence is not convincing. Other authorities (Allentuck, 1942; Freedman, " 1946) maintain that even prolonged and obsessive use of cannabis does not lead to physical, mental or moral degradation. The Chopras (1957) write: 'Those who indulge in it habitually can carry on their ordinary vocations . . . and do not become a burden to society or even a social nuisance.'

The idea of cannabis psychosis arose because the early reports came from countries where cAnnabis was used by the very poor and deprived. It was the same kind of thinking that started the idea :that masturbation led to insanity. People saw mental patients masturbating in mad houses, because they were bored or for a -Variety of other reasons, and they naively assumed that one was the cause of the other. The same primitive logic persuaded un- critical observers to assume that anyone who took cannabis would end up in the kind of degradation to be found in the slums of the Middle East. But a slum is no place to collect a representative , sample. The personalities of slum dwellers who use cannabis are not useful indications of the personality characteristics of other users.

The suggestion that cannabis can lead to diminished initiative ' Max be.nearer the truth. The excessive user finds that the drug brings him most of the satisfactions that he needs. The ordinary problems that occur in everyday life are taken lightly and he is buoyed up by a cheerful optimism that things will work themselves out all in good time. It is an attitude of mind that would be of value to some of us who worry too much, but it could also mislead others with a lazy disposition into feeling that no effortis required to solve their various problems.

A more serious accusation is that the heavy user suffers from a general disorientation of purpose. Rosevear (1967) is a strong supporter of legalization, but he notes: 'Many who are under the drug's spell find that simple acts, such as getting a glass of water, are laborious, and it is not uncommon to find a person who is intoxicated so disorientated that he will be standing in the middle of the kitchen, glass in hand, wondering what on earth it was he was about to do.'

Regular smokers are sometimes known as 'losers'. They tend to lose interest in projects and are often unsuccessful in the ordinary, worldly aspects of life. They lack ambition for material success and so do not care much about financial stability or social approval. But the number of cannabis takers who become excessive users is so small that it seems likely that there is already a particular psychological trait in their personality. It is difficult to separate cause and effect in this situation, and it is not clear whether cannabis causes them to be unsuccessful, or whether their inability to fit into ordinary society causes them to take too much cannabis.

Another complaint about regular users is that their attitude is basically anti-intellectual. They tend to adopt the ideas of the underground youth (ex-hippy) movements and some of these notions do not go much further than a mindless search for the joys of love. Few pot heads read books and many are hopelessly inarticulate even when on campaigns of genuine social and moral worth.

For many music is a more vivid form of communication than words; pop music has now developed beyond its original commercial simplicity, but even at its best, it can arouse emotions but not logical thought processes. Pot heads are usually attracted to art and poetry which is concerned mainly with the incongruous and the absurd. They are more interested in the mood of a film or novel than in the plot. Most of all there is a strong preference for emotional reaction instead of chains of thought. People, like myself, whose writing and thinking depends upon ' linear ' sequences of reasoning find it difficult to follow these bursts of insight. But our inability is the result of our training, which has limited our field of vision, and we must be careful not to be too critical of something we do not really understand.

A Secret Life

Cannabis is a social drug and is nearly always smoked in a group. There is no cannabis equivalent to the secret drinker, who hides a bottle in his or her room and develops a dependence on alcohol unknown to friends or family.

The beginner would find it quite difficult to smoke pot on his own. First, he must know someone in order to get a supply; even if he knew where to go, a dealer would hesitate to sell to a stranger. Then he needs to learn the special technique of smoking the drug so as to gain the maximum effect; few people get much pleasure from their first attempt to take cannabis and the novice must learn to perceive and appreciate the effects of the drug.

A group also provides valuable psychological support. Before a beginner smokes pot, he must overcome a powerful set of deterrents. He knows that it is illegal and the punishment will be severe if he is caught. He knows this behaviour can lead to social ostracism by people who are important to him — his family and friends. It is also likely that he has, to some degree, accepted the traditional views which look upon cannabis as a sign of moral degradation. He needs a demonstration that the drug is pleasurable and not harmful. In other words he must become an 'insider' before he can become a regular pot smoker.

The influence of the group can also be beneficial. The beginner learns to control the effects of the drug, so that he obtains euphoric sensations without becoming incapable or stoned. But the group also makes it easier for the sporadic user to become a regular smoker. At first the casual user smokes when it is available, which usually means when he is with others who have a supply; when this is not the case, he does not smoke. But after a series of chance encounters of this kind, he begins to feel under an obligation to contribute. So he asks someone else in the group wherein can buy cannabis and he is taken to a dealer, who prefers a personal introduction as he may fear a police trap when selling to a newcomer. So the first supply is bought through the group, whose influence becomes still more binding.

Gradually he acquires a new set of friends and he probably feels that they have to be kept apart from his old friends, and so he is now leading two lives. Perhaps he is known as a respectable citizen to his business acquaintances who, if they knew he took cannabis, might regard him as an unfortunate dope fiend. Although the number of people using cannabis is increasing rapidly and this is bound to lead to more tolerance and better understanding, it is still true that the pot smoker is outside normal social boundaries for most people.

There are a large number of reasons why a young person will try to keep his pot smoking secret. First of all it is illegal and an otherwise law-abiding individual is often reluctant to commit a crime. He knows that if he is discovered by the police he will be subject to severe penalities, perhaps even a prison sentence. He may get into trouble even if he is not misbehaving or abusing the drug and he can be arrested even before he has started to smoke it. In addition to this, he may lose his job if his employer gets to hear about his drug taking. Unless they are unusually well informed, his friends and relatives will regard his use of cannabis as a sign of - irresponsibility and lack of self-control.

It is not difficult to remember, because it is not long ago, my reactions when I first heard about a friend who took cannabis. I did not know much about recreational drugs and assumed, almost without thinking, that cannabis was in the same category as opium and other dangerous drugs. I tried to be tolerant but could not help regarding my friend with pity and concern. It never occurred to me at the time that it might be a conscious choice by a sensible man, who had thought carefully about the situation before deciding to take it.

The need to lead this double life produces a vague kind of paranoia in some individuals. He begins to suspect that he is being followed; he suddenly switches to another dealer because he fears a trap; he crosses to the other side of the street when he sees a policeman, even if he is not carrying cannabis at the time, because he fears that he will be stopped and have the drug planted on him while being searched; he thinks his telephone is being tapped and his home is being watched by the police; the ritual before smoking involves meticulous and excessive precautions. Of course this f• eeling of persecution is not always imaginary. The police will go to
a great deal of trouble to catch drug takers and the basis for his fears may be real.

A double life of this kind will often involve lies, subterfuges and time-table manipulations, which in turn create tension and dis, trust between people who previously were friendly. Some people are so depressed by the need to keep their drug taking secret that they decide that it is not worth while. Others manage to keep their two lives apart, even when it means adopting two standards and complying with two different conventions. Still others resolve the dilemma by opting out of the normal world, choosing to live in a social group where cannabis is accepted.

Introverted Groups

A cannabis-orientated group has its own elaborate culture. Much of the talk is about pot. If the neophyte is to feel at ease with the others in the group, he must be table to talk knowledgeably about the different types of cannabis in the same way that a connoisseur talks about wine.

In such a group his life will centre around cannabis. He will be influenced by close friends, all of whom smoke pot. But this decision to join this group goes beyond the desire to smoke when he wants to. It is not just the drug which will monopolize his interests and absorb all his time. It is the different way of life which he will find so compelling.

He will now be in a group whose values and activities will be opposed to those of the larger conventional society. The people in such agroup tend to think of themselves as a race apart — not only different, but in some way superior. The new member of the group will feel emancipated and free at last from the 'grey' people in the materialistic world outside. He will be apathetic and uncommunicative when work or family obligations take him away from his cannabis-orientated world and he will spend every free moment with others who share the same group attitudes. The pot culture will dominate his whole life.

These groups are in no way anarchical. There are fairly strongstandards which exercise a powerful influence on behaviour. The members share a group language and cultural interests; they accept a group norm of behaviour and hold similar attitudes towards political and social institutions. There is a strong group ethic and departure from these standards is viewed with the same disapproval as unconventional behaviour is regarded in ordinary society.

In some groups the standards are high, but they all suffer from the defect of exclusiveness. As their use of cannabis is illegal, there is a strong sense of self-protection. Outsiders are discouraged and it is a long time before newcomers are accepted into the circle, with the result that the attitudes of the group, which are sometimes biased or distorted, are less likely to be corrected. The absence of outside streams of thought is restricting and unhealthy, and leads to the development of introverted minority groups.

Cannabis Coteries

When society comes across a minority within itself, its first action is to try to assimilate it. But if this is not possible, then the minority suffers discrimination and the result will be the formation of introverted minority groups. Professor Allport (1954) in his book, The Nature of Prejudice, has listed some of the traits which characterize these groups, and similar characteristics have been noted by Little (1947) among Negroes, Robb (1954) among Jews, and Westwood (1960) among homosexuals. The cannabis coteries are no exception.

One trait, already noted in this chapter, is the anxiety and paranoia which is common to these introverted groups. Another is the strengthening of ties within the group after rejection by the dominant society. Another characteristic is the tendency to quarrel among themselves (e.g. the disputes on the editorial boards of IT and Rolling Stone), but to band together against outside authorities. Another trait, found particularly in religious minorities, is the attempt to be self-sufficient by setting up small rural communities, as many of the cannabis groups have done in the United States. In urban society, influential members of the group give employment or other important positions to people in the same group. Another characteristic is for such groups to become more formalized, with their own organizations and periodicals, taking as their aim the protection of their civil liberties against the prejudices of the dominant majority; Release and Bit are examples of this in the cannabis underground. It is clear that many of the characteristics of the cannabis coteries are common to all introverted minority groups and share many of their disadvantages.

Non-Conformists

Although introverted groups can be disruptive, it is important to emphasize that this is not an objection to minorities as such, or to individuals who do not conform. A man who is forbidden by fear of exposure, trial and punishment from carrying on an activity which he is convinced is harmless to others and to himself is likely to take a cynical look at some of the other customs and standards of his community. Just as an anthropologist finds the mores of primitive tribes to be inexplicable or irrational, so a social isolate in modem communities will query ideas and values that the main body of society accepts without question.

People who do not conform may be mocked for their eccentricities, but history is full of examples of the considerable value rendered to the community by people who have questioned old and unbroken traditions. An eccentric suggests that there may be another way of looking at things — outside the central view — and thus becomes a non-conformist, and then an innovator.

Fundamental changes affecting the whole social pattern now occur within the life of a single individual and innovators are required to produce new ideas to fit new situations. This is happen* just as often in the field of social behaviour as in politics or economics. There has always been a conflict between the non-conformist and the established customs of the community and the progress of society has always depended on this conflict. But the value of people who feel the need to question old moral laws and customs is far greater today than ever before because the pressures towards conformism are stronger and social situations change more rapidly. The rebel against an over-organized authority is often the distinguishing characteristic of the young user of cannabis.

Although non-conformism in individuals is a useful asset to any community, a collection of non-conformists driven into social isolation, forming an introverted minority group, is not a constructive entity. It is a union against the dominant majority and so it is more likely to be an irritant than an aid to the well-being of the , community.

Social Pressures

The standard of behaviour in some of the cannabis-orientated groups is high. But the new member of even the most circumspect cannabis coterie must discard many of the social controls which are part of the outside world in favour of the less conventional attitudes of the in-group. Before long all the ties which are important to him are with other cannabis users. The group has its own status symbols and mythology, and provides the same kind: of psychological support that a family group provides for other people. This means that he becomes alienated from the conventional culture. It gradually becomes more and more difficult for him to be a participant in community activities even in a limited way. From a social isolate he becomes a social alien.

All this is exacerbated by the generation gap that separates the cannabis coteries from the community. Religious, racial, even homosexual groups do not have this age division. The youth versus age factor is a particular characteristic of the drug problem. One of the more famous sayings in the cannabis coteries is 'don't trust anyone over thirty'. This means that the ideas within these introverted groups are likely to be inexperienced and immature. It also prompts the question: what happens to the pot smoker after he reaches thirty?

It is important to note that the tendency to form these introverted groups is not caused by taking cannabis: it is the result of social hostility. It is almost as if people have an unconscious desire to wall off drug takers from the rest of us. All the pressures of society tend to push the individual users of cannabis into groups of like-minded pot smokers who think of themselves as a persecuted superior minority. This is an ironic situation, because those who are outraged by any suggestion that the cannabis laws should be changed are the very people who are making sure that the cannabis culture will become a strong influence in the life of the community.

Unfortunately this chapter may have given the impression that nearly all users of cannabis will end up in an introverted minority group. It is necessary therefore, to emphasize that this progression hardly applies at all to the sporadic user (Zinberg, 1970). Furthermore there is a large number of regular users who live unharrassed lives and are well integrated with the community. Using a large sample representative of the adult population of San Francisco, Manheimer (1969) found the majority of cannabis users were 'reasonably conventional'. Pot smokers comprise a heterogenous group of personality types, some of whom are respectable and valuable members of the community at least one is an ex-member of the Cabinet. These people have successfully achieved this balance between the normal world and the cannabis culture despite the social pressures and the tendency to regard all drug takers as outcasts. Psychiatrists and others who meet a pot smoker search for a flaw in the personality, but the severest problems are created by imperfections in society, not in the individual.

It is now a well-established sociological principle (Westwood, 1960; Becker, 1963; Matza, 1969) that people regarded as deviants will become deviant, not because of their type of behaviour, but as a result of the social hostility to their preferred activities. The extent to which an individual can resist these social pressures depends upon his personality and on the defences he erects against this social hostility. The effect of these pressures is a matter of degree, bnt the direction is always the same — away from integration with the community.

1. All witnesses were assured that their evidence would remain confidential and were given an indemnity against legal action as a result of anything disclosed.