Because our Puritan-based society has traditionally been uneasy
about alcohol, and because alcohol is so easily subject to abuse, various controls have been developed governing its sale and use; while they may be flawed, these controls do work. (It is generally acknowledged that the extreme social control known as Prohibition was a failure, just as prohibition is now a failure with marijuana.) To accommodate the moderate use of alcohol, society has devised informal yet serious rules for drinking, including don't drink alone, don't drink and drive, don't drink before noon (or before dark), don't drink on an empty stomach, know your limit, and so forth. People invite one another to have "a drink," and sometimes two, but those who drink to excess, or who drink self-destructively, are still the exception rather than the rule.Zinberg and Harding observe that the rituals and social sanctions that govern the use of alcohol are first learned in early childhood. In time, the rules become internalized, to the point where they feel natural. Children see that their parents and other adults use alcohol; they are also exposed to drinking on television, in the movies, and in magazines and newspapers. In some cultures, here and abroad, children are introduced to alcohol by their parents7 whether it be a glass of wine at dinner or a mere sip on religious occasions. But more often, social controls regarding alcohol are transmitted by unconscious example, both through the media and within individual families.
As children grow into adolescence, they often test the rules they have been taught. In an attempt to discover their own limits, they may violate some of the rules and take note of the disapproval of society toward their behavior. Indeed, it is expected that adolescents will show a strong interest in drinking, to the point where many teenagers must feel that antisocial drinking on their part is at least partially sanctioned, if not altogether condoned, by adult society. For those with drinking problems, there are agencies, sympathetic adults, and even peers who will help, usually stopping short of urging total abstinence.
Unfortunately, users of illicit drugs have no comparable models or rules to look to outside of the drug culture itself. Currently, the rules that govern the use of recreational drugs are passed on by peer groups and are learned individually as well. For example, most marijuana smokers, if unfamiliar with the origin of the joint they are smoking, will usually not finish it all at once. If, after a few minutes, they do not feel high (or high enough), they will resume smoking.
Similarly, without even realizing it, most marijuana smokers over the age of, say, twenty-five, use marijuana only at specific times: on weekends, in the evenings, at parties, and so forth. One smoker suggests that smoking during daylight hours on a weekday constitutes a serious act of defiance and is a blatant violation of the norms of the rest of society; therefore, he believes, it represents more of a commitment, and also more of an adventure.
The kind of cross-generational teaching that takes place with regard to the use of alcohol has no equivalent when it comes to other drugs. As far as the adolescent as potential user is concerned, the obvious authorities—school, government, the medical establishment, and the mass media—have used up what credibility they may have had with regard to drugs by interposing their moral vision instead of presenting facts. The problem used to be the concern of drug users; it is now spreading to the general public as well. "I know my daughter is smoking pot," says a Chicago businessman, "and it won't do much good for me to tell her she shouldn't." Why, he wants to know, can't drug education be more like sex education, so that his daughter can learn the truth about the various choices and risks involved. "Of course I would prefer that she didn't use drugs at all," he explains, "but I have to be realistic. I know she does, and I want her to get good information and good advice so she can stay out of trouble."
The way most marijuana users stay out of trouble is to adopt one of two convenient lines of reasoning. The first, which is especially attractive to marijuana smokers who use no other drugs, is to separate all drugs into categories of good and bad. Marijuana is "good," heroin is "bad," and other drugs are assigned various levels of acceptability within this range. But such distinctions, Zinberg and Harding insist, are both arbitrary and false. They say that the more that is learned about drugs, the more it becomes clear that drugs by themselves have little inherent meaning; their meaning comes from the people who use them. And so, for example, there are several million Americans who use marijuana in an essentially harmful or destructive way—it interferes with their work, their growth, and even their social relations. For these people, it would seem that marijuana is anything but "good." At the same time, several million other Americans use heroin to no great disadvantage, and without becoming addicted to it.[2]