Introduction

It seems unlikely that the problem of cannabis will conveniently disappear like teddy boys, skiffle, flower power and most of the transient fashion cults of the young. When the present younger generations have grown up, married and become parents, some of them will still smoke pot occasionally, and many others will have had this experience. Their views are unlikely to be as confused and emotional as the opinions of older adults, who can just remember their youthful flings including acts of non-conformity, rebellion, delinquency and sexual adventures, but who are in total ignorance as far as drugs are concerned. Many people are using cannabis and •many more are going to use it for a long time to come, so it is only sensible to get to know more about it.

This will not be easy. It is a hornets' nest of controversy with experts coming to contradictory conclusions. Why should there be this dispute on a question which would seem, on the surface at least, not to be a hard one to answer? This is a puzzle for anyone concerned with social behaviour and this book attempts to explain the sources of this discord.

It is often said that only a little is known about cannabis, but this is not really true. Millions of words have been written about it for hundreds of years. The report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1894 takes up seven volumes. The commission of inquiry set up by the Mayor of New York kept eminent doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, pharmacologists, chemists, sociologists and police officers occupied for years. There have been important reports by various agencies of the United Nations. And more recently there has been the Wootton report.

In the last few years there have been many popular books about . drugs, each with a section on cannabis, and some of these have been very good (Leech, 1967; Newmark, 1968; Silberman, 1967; - Drugs and Civil Liberties, 1969). I personally have read over two Thousand books, articles, papers in learned journals, before starting to write this book. The problem is not the lack of information, but to sort out the contradictory observations and conflicting opinions In a mass of material that varies from quiet objectivity to emotional polemics — most of it tending towards the latter. References ate given in the text and listed at the end of this book. It would have been possible, though perhaps redundant, to have cited hundreds More.

Strictly, a drug is any chemical applied to any living material to affect it in some way. A drug in the medical sense is a medicine usually prescribed by a doctor and obtained from a chemist's shop. But a drug, as the term is used in this book, is taken for comfort, stimulation or pleasure — a recreational drug. Many of these are prescribed by doctors, but a few of them, like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, can be obtained more easily. Others, like cannabis, are

In April 1970 the Government introduced a new Misuse of Drugs Bill, but it had not completed its passage through Parliament before the General Election. As none of the main parties opposed it, a similar Bill will probably be introduced early in the life of the new Government. The new legislation proposes penalties of up to five years and an unlimited fine for possessing cannabis, and fourteen years and an unlimited fine for supplying it. This perpetuates two of the current myths about drugs: that it is the traffickers who create the demand for recreational drugs, and that severe penalties are a positive contribution to 'solving' the drugs problem. As the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has said: Sonie laws are passed to express public disapproval, not to be enforced.' But moral posturing is a poor substitute for informed i)ublic opinion and it has become most important that the real -situation is known and faced.

The original title of this book was to have been The Case For and Against Pot. It was intended to present both sides of the controversy and weigh the evidence before coming to a conclusion. But once the myths were cleared, it became obvious that the case for and against was not evenly balanced. By any ordinary standards of objectivity, it is clear that cannabis is not a very harmful drug. But the simple ranging of issues side by side is too superficial an approach for what is a very complex situation — really a social problem, much less a legal problem, and still less a medical problem.

The effects of the drug are important but there is now less dispute About the facts, particularly since the publication of the Wootton report Obviously I have devoted several chapters to the properties of cannabis, but what is of much greater interest than the drug itself is the people who use it and the attitudes of those who do not.

When you are called criminal by magistrates and police, crazy by psychiatrists, sick by other doctors, you have to be a special kind of :person to go right on smoking pot. When taking cannabis arouses estrange mixture of revulsion, bigotry and fascination in the minds of the general public, there must be some basic emotional horror that brings out such an inconsistent response. As usual people are :more interesting than things — even psychoactive things.    - -

Many words are used for the drug cannabis. Marihuana (or :marijuana) refers only to the leaves and not the resin of the plant,1 zi but the word is used universally in America and so it occurs in some -='- of the quotations from American books which I have used. Hemp, hashish and hash are other common words for cannabis. The only bother word for cannabis which I have used throughout the book is pot (from the Mexican-Spanish potaguaya). This is from the Vernacular, but it has now become the popular name for cannabis ;because it is short and convenient. Pot smokers are said to be 'addicted, habituated and dependent, but all these words apply value judgements and are best avoided. In this book cannabis is smoked, taken, used, and occasionally misused.

Whenever I talk or write about cannabis, I am asked if I smoke 'pot. It is an uncivil question, for a person should not be asked in public whether or not he has committed a crime. But I can see why the reader might be curious. If the writer takes cannabis, then obviously he has an axe to grind, and allowance must be made for his bias. If he does not take cannabis, then he cannot be fully informed about the effects of the drug. Since I was appointed to the Government Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence, several people have offered to turn me on — no doubt with the,very best of intentions and to help me become better acquainted with the subject. But I have never smoked pot or taken cannabis in any form. I am sorry if this lessens the validity of my work for some readers. Incidentally, I have also written a report about child molesters, but have not assaulted any children. On balance I believe the non-user of cannabis is better equipped to write a book about pot: one does not go to a cigarette company for an impartial study of the effects of tobacco.

I have tried to be objective and I have discussed all sides of each argument as fairly as possible. But it would have been unhelpful to leave the reader to pick his way through the jungle of conflicting statements. In several cases I have expressed personal opinions after evaluating all the evidence. Therefore I must confess to one bias — fear, perhaps, is the operative word. We must avoid the sacrifice of individual privacy and personal freedom in what may turn out to be a losing battle. Consequently I have tended to favour the real instead of the ideal.

The book is divided into three major parts. In the first five chapters I present the basic information about cannabis and compare it with the other illegal drugs. In the next six chapters I try to explain the public attitudes to cannabis and discuss the main controversies. In the last five chapters I attempt to describe the legal and sociological aspects, and end by suggesting a more sensible plan of action.

1. This is explained more fully in chapter 1.