Strategies of Smokers

To avoid entering into an unhealthy relationship with marijuana, many users develop a variety of tactics, strategies, and rationalizations in order to control, explain, and sometimes excuse their use of the drug. One prevalent myth among smokers holds that marijuana isn't a drug at all but rather an "herb." For some smokers, like David, marijuana exists in its own special category:

For a long time I resisted the idea that marijuana was a drug. After all, I wasn't a person who used drugs. All I did was smoke marijuana. Despite my positive experiences with grass, and my strong curiosity about other drugs, I stayed away from cocaine, acid, speed—even hash. At least I was consistent in my distortion. I was honest enough to realize that I could tolerate only a single exception in my structure. I knew that I couldn't start making exceptions for cocaine or anything else without the whole false scheme coming apart.

    Carol recalls practicing a similar self-deception:

For years I was a person who "officially didn't smoke dope," even though I was actually smoking about twice a week. But it was never my own stuff, and that made all the difference. I never actually went out and bought it, because that was a symbolic step I wasn't prepared to take. Finally, when I moved to Denver, I bought an ounce because—or so I told myself—my boyfriend would want to smoke when he came up to visit. After using a couple of ounces before he even showed up, I took a look at what I was doing, and stopped playing games.

    And Judy remembers that when she was single, she never actually bought marijuana; she only smoked it. Buying was too great a commitment. "Once I bought an ounce," she recalls, "but I kept it quiet so that nobody would think I was a head."
    The question of self-image among smokers is an important one, and it can be understood through the use of the term "pothead," or its contemporary version, "head." It seems that almost everybody who smokes marijuana knows somebody else who smokes more often. And that person is considered a head, whether it be the once-a-week user talking about his three-joints-a-week friend, or the three-a-week user talking about the daily smoker, or even the daily smoker talking about the person who is stoned virtually all of the time.
    Not all strategies of marijuana use involve distortion or denial. Most smokers have a realistic notion of the difference between use and abuse. A Wisconsin teacher provides a typical definition:

To use dope badly is to use it to avoid oneself, life, or dealing with the real world. In short, it is the same as using liquor or pills to avoid or negate the pain which is part of human experience and growth. Grass can often alleviate pain, and I don't always think that's a good thing. To use it well means to use it for enhancing pleasures, rather than avoiding pain.

    For a Minneapolis smoker, using marijuana well means:

... knowing what kinds of effects the stuff produces, and identifying those times when you feel like having those effects. In other words, I know what it will make me feel like, and I'm interested in feeling that way, so I may use it. For me, it's a very conscious act. If using drugs ever became unconscious or habitual, I would worry about it.

    And a high school teacher in Ohio observes: "If you planned to smoke Friday night, and then forgot, and had a good time anyway, and then regretted not smoking—that's using it poorly."