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  • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • 1. An Overview of
  • The First Time
  • Because our Puritan-based society has traditionally been uneasy
  • Addiction and
  • At the same time, marijuana is an attractive activity for
  • Strategies of Smokers
  • There are some smokers who are convinced that "good
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  • 14. Looking Ahead:
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  • The Moment of Awareness
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  • 2. A Denver high school
  • I don't know if you're interested, but the reason I started
  • Relating to Marijuana

    Almost by definition, committed smokers enjoy a relationship with marijuana. "If I go for a week or two without smoking," says a Philadelphia clergyman, "I feel like I haven't been home." But among smokers there exists a wide range of attitudes toward the drug, depending on such factors as the frequency with which they use it, their age, and the attitudes of the culture around them. There are smokers for whom marijuana is barely a drug at all; they use it habitually and have long ago stopped getting high. At the other end of the spectrum are those who use marijuana as a kind of miracle drug, who ascribe to it an endless string of positive characteristics, sometimes viewing it as a kind of sacrament that must be treated as something special in order for the user to fully enjoy and appreciate its gifts:

    Grass gives you time, a very precious gift, to think about what you did today, and what you're going to do tomorrow, and also what you did yesterday, and why. You learn the reasons for the things you do, and it lets you learn quickly, without wasting much time. All dope is good for the experienced user, but you have to know how to use it instead of lose it, or else it's wasted—and so are you. And so is the time you've used up without learning anything.


        This approach is similar to the quasi-religious attitude of those smokers who view marijuana in terms of a natural product that has been put on earth specifically for the enjoyment and enlightenment of human beings. A college freshman explains:

    Like trees, earth and water, pot is truly a gift from heaven. It makes you happy, confident and patient. It makes me truly enjoy people and enjoy living. If you go up to a complete stranger and ask if they want to get high, chances are they will jump at the opportunity. I came within an inch of going to prison once for possession of marijuana, but I'll never quit getting high. I have never met anyone who regrets that he has started smoking, and I believe that everybody should try it once in his life.


        For Judy, this feeling occurs only occasionally, when marijuana appears unexpectedly:

    A particularly wonderful thing is to come upon some dope by surprise. Like on a Saturday afternoon: my husband and I have driven around trying to buy furniture, and we're on each other's nerves and fighting. We decide to treat ourselves to Chinese food. It sounds like a great idea, we are both thinking, but it's too bad we don't have any dope.
        Then one of us gets the brilliant notion that there may be a roach in the ashtray, and lo and behold, there is! Actually, there are several, but there is only one just big enough to help erase the cares of the day, and allow us to laugh at them and enhance our dinner.


        The "roach in the ashtray" experience occurs infrequently, and it really has to, by definition; it is most authentic and most gratifying if it's a surprise. For many smokers, there is an inverse relationship between the frequency with which they smoke and the extent to which they value marijuana. Carol is a psychiatric nurse in her mid-thirties who smokes only once or twice a month. Her life by no means revolves around marijuana, and yet it is clearly important to her:

    Sometimes I have found myself thinking: this particular high tonight is worth the whole cost of this ounce, even if it's fifty dollars. Obviously, this is one item in which I'm getting my money's worth. I really don't flinch anymore if the ounce is fifty dollars. I know I'll keep it a long time and get immeasurable pleasure from it.


        Part of a smoker's relationship with marijuana may involve a personal understanding of how it works, of what it means to the smoker. Occasionally, a smoker will explain this in metaphorical terms. Marijuana, says an
    Oklahoma man, "is truly a weed that turns to a flower in your mind." David uses a different image:

    I think there's a lot of mythology about how grass works. If you open a window, for example, and see a lovely view, you surely don't assume that the window caused the view. And yet people are always making that mistake about grass. It doesn't give you anything new; it gives you access to new things. The results are the same, but the process is different.

     

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