A major point of contention between smokers and nonsmokers is
the charge that smokers are escaping reality, that they are smoking because they need to. Some smokers respond in kind, with a popular phrase to the effect that reality is for people who can't handle drugs. More seriously, marijuana users insist that "reality" is a subjective and vague term, and that by entering a different form of it, they are not escaping but are in fact encountering it on a different level. As a Boston man explains it, "Smoking is something like a smooth stone skimming across the surface of a lake; you are hovering above your normal reality most of the time, but you never abandon it entirely."Many nonsmokers feel awkward and even offended by the lack of tolerance shown to them by marijuana users. "Whenever a joint is being passed around," one woman told me, "I always wonder what the other people are thinking of me, since I don't smoke. I feel bad because they probably think that I'm really square, and antisocial."
The irony of her remark is that at the present moment in American culture, there are circumstances in which both users and nonusers correctly perceive themselves as an embattled minority. Nonsmokers sometimes complain of "trips laid on us" by smokers and are frequently offended by the way smokers stick together at a party, forming a closed group of gigglers, acting in an exclusive and detached way. For their part, smokers are often angered by casual pronouncements offered by well-meaning friends about the drug and its use. A retired professor of psychology explains:
What really bugs me are the people who say, "I don't need it." My feeling is, what an ungrateful wretch, to be put on this planet with this truly beautiful substance, and then to say to the Creator who gave it to you, "I don't need that." These are the people who really do need it, and they also need a kick in the pants for being so ungrateful.
More often, though, the differences between the two groups are
manifested less in anger than by a simple difficulty in communication. While
visiting with Murray's brother
and sister-in-law during a vacation, Judy found herself at odds with her hosts
over the marijuana issue. "They tried to make us feel guilty about
smoking," she says. "But actually, I think they're afraid of trying
it. They can't tolerate looking deeply into themselves, and so they write it
off, saying, 'I'm the kind of person who gets high on life.'"
"Getting high on life" is by now so well known a catch
phrase that many smokers simply smile knowingly when they hear it and make no
attempt to respond. The phrase has become for users roughly equivalent to
"some of my best friends are Jewish." It's not that smokers don't
believe that it's possible to get "high on life"; on the contrary,
many smokers hold that getting high on life is the whole purpose of
smoking—they regard marijuana as a tool that can eventually be done away with.
But smokers are skeptical of people who claim they get "high on
life," first because the phrase is glib, and also because it is usually
untrue. Smokers find this response particularly annoying, because the nonsmoker
who voices it implies that he or she knows what being high is all about, while
at the same time confirming that getting high in the first place is a good
idea.
While marijuana smoking no longer constitutes an automatic
community of adherents, there is still an ethic among smokers that marijuana is
to be shared whenever possible. Some smokers, particularly the older ones, are
wary about the prospect of legalization, which, they fear, might destroy the
last vestiges of community among users, replacing it by rampant
commercialization. This sense of community has something to do with marijuana's
illegal status, but it goes well beyond that, into the personal realm, as Sarah
explains:
The greatest feeling in the world is when you don't have any dope of your own, and you meet somebody and they offer you some. There's something about smoking another person's dope that is highly enjoyable, and usually gets me more stoned than normal Somehow, if it belongs to somebody else, and they are sharing it, you partake of a different energy, which enhances the experience.
The bond that exists among smokers makes it difficult to conceive
of a marijuana tavern, unless someone is perpetually buying a round of joints
for the house. Marijuana and capitalism work well together when it comes to
advertising and distributing marijuana-related products, such as rolling
papers, pipes, and other paraphernalia, but many smokers prefer that marijuana
itself be distributed more personally. A nineteen-year-old girl explains what
she likes about the present system:
Most of what I like about pot is that it's a sharing thing. Ninety-nine percent of all the people who smoke will go to a party and share their dope, strangers and all. No one I have ever met would smoke his own stash and not offer it, and that's a nice thing in 1979.
Occasionally, the communal aspect of smoking marijuana will
manifest itself more intensely, and for the person encountering it for the
first time, the experience can be memorable. A young man from Nevada who spent
two weeks at a Methodist youth camp remembers vividly his first contact with
other smokers:
The
love, the sharing and the camaraderie were overwhelming. Some of these people
are still good friends. For me, it was the first taste of that invisible bond
which seems to exist between pot smokers, or at least those of the
consciousness-raising type, akin to the communion of "water brothers"
in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
Marijuana is an incredible social agent, often without anything
else that the people have in common. They meet and become friends because they
had that one thing in common which led to "do you want to get
stoned?" And the answer is usually yes.