The Effectiveness of the Subculture in Developing Rituals
and Social Sanctions for Controlled Drug Use
(1977)
Introduction by Peter Webster
The following paper, from 1977, is an example of the high
quality research into the use of psychedelics and other "drugs of
abuse" that continued despite governmental restrictions and other
discouragements to workers in the field of drug research. As with so
many research projects, the findings were not at all what
prohibitionist functionaries wanted or could accept, and such reports
were often vehemently rejected by their sponsors, and ignored by the
media who would have trumpeted the results on high had they supported
Prohibition. The study here is of particular interest in that it
indicates that drug users in today's societies tend to re-create in a
modern context the methods and rituals of drug use seen in tribal
societies which enable the drugs to be used safely and for certain
defined purposes. The authors conclude:
"Our findings show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, controlled
use of illicit drugs is possible and is fostered by subcultural
rituals and social sanctions that support controlled use and curtail
drug abuse... Ironically, the present attempt to eliminate all use of
illicit drugs undermines users' ability to control them... What is
clear is that the attempt to eliminate all use of these drugs
contributes to their abuse by people who take them.
"Certainly decriminalization of marihuana should be extended beyond
those few states which have adopted it, and federal penalties for use
should be dropped. Further research on the possible medical
applications of marihuana and the psychedelics should be undertaken,
and results sufficiently publicized so that their public image as
"bad" drugs can be dissipated. Heroin should be made available to
physicians as a legitimate analgesic, and experimentation with heroin
maintenance clinics for the treatment of addicts should also begin
with careful control.
"Drug education programs which are no more than disguised campaigns
to eliminate use should be replaced with genuine efforts to provide
users and non-users with some rudimentary pharmacological data and
with detailed information about the consequences of various patterns
of use. Doctors, teachers, counselors, and others who encounter drug
users should be instructed in how to distinguish use from abuse—it
simply makes no sense to alienate and undermine those segments of the
population of drug-takers who stand against abuse.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SUBCULTURE
IN DEVELOPING RITUALS AND SOCIAL SANCTIONS
FOR CONTROLLED DRUG USE 1
WAYNE M. HARDING & NORMAN E. ZINBERG, M.D.*
from: Drugs, Rituals and Altered States of Consciousness,
Brian M. DuToit, editor. ©1977, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam
* Wayne Harding is a Research Associate at The Cambridge Hospital
Norman Zinberg is a Faculty Member of Harvard Medical School at The
Cambridge Hospital and of The Boston Psychoanalytic Institute.
In the United States, social and legal taboos against the nonmedical
use of illicit drugs are reinforced by the prevailing view that these
drugs are almost animately pernicious. According to this view,
marihuana, LSD, cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs are so
overpowering and/ or so dangerous that their continued use inevitably
leads to drug abuse. The physiological and psychological damage
evidenced by the most serious abusers of illicit drugs is regularly
invoked as proof of this "pharmacomythology" (Szasz, 1975) .
There is nothing in the pharmacology of these drugs, however, that
precludes the possibility that they can be used without being abused.
Our study of controlled drug use, sponsored by The Drug Abuse
Council, Inc., has located users of marihuana, psychedelics, and
opiates who, like most alcohol users, manage to maintain regular non-
compulsive use of these drugs, Analysis of longitudinal interview
data indicates that this 'controlled' use is chiefly supported by
emerging subcultural drug-using rituals and social sanctions. These
rituals and social sanctions provide what the larger culture does
not: instruction in and reinforcement for maintaining patterns of
illicit drug use which do not interfere with ordinary functioning and
methods for use which minimize untoward drug effects.
In this article we discuss these findings and the related work of
other researchers. We also argue that existing subcultural rituals
and social sanctions, elaborated and endorsed by the mainstream
culture, could be a more humane and perhaps more effective means of
preventing drug abuse than legal prohibition.
Serious consideration of such alternatives is especially timely given
the recent actions of some states to significantly reduce the legal
penalties surrounding the use of marihuana. It appears that these
reductions have been prompted by a growing realization that our
costly social policy has not succeeded in halting marihuana use by a
large number of Americans. Thus far, however public debate over
liberalization of drug laws has not taken into account changes in
drug-using style.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
As used here. 'ritual' refers to the stylized, prescribed behavior
surrounding the use of a drug. This behavior may include methods of
procuring and administering the drug, selection of physical and
social settings for use, activities undertaken after the drug has
been administered, and methods of preventing untoward drug effects.
'Social sanctions' refers to the norms regarding how or whether a
particular drug should be used. Social sanctions include both the
informal and often unspoken values or rules of conduct shared by a
group, and the formal laws and policies regulating drug use.2 These
two aspects of social sanctions are not always consonant. Laws
prohibiting use of illicit drugs may reflect the values of the
majority of Americans but are often at odds with the values of drug
users. Various segments of society thus observe quite different
social sanctions (and rituals) although each segment is cognizant of
and influenced by the other's. The relationship among the rituals and
social sanctions of controlled illicit drug users, of compulsive
users, and of the mainstream culture is a focus of concern in later
portions of this paper.
Our use of the terms 'ritual' and 'social sanction' differs from the
classic use of the terms 'ritual' and 'ritual belief' in
anthropology. The distinction between drug-using rituals and social
sanctions is one of behavior versus beliefs, or practice versus
dogma. In anthropology, terms such as 'ritual beliefs' and
'ceremonial beliefs' are used instead of 'social sanctions' ( Leach,
1968) . We prefer 'social sanctions' for two reasons. First, this
term emphasizes that beliefs are socially derived and reinforced.
Second, 'social sanctions' conveys more clearly than 'ritual beliefs'
the sense that behavior and belief are separable concepts. While it
is true that rituals and ritual beliefs are intimately related, and
sometimes virtually indistinguishable, we have found that different
drug users ( heroin addicts versus controlled heroin users, for
example) may share very similar drug-using rituals, yet subscribe to
dichotomous social sanctions. In other words, social sanctions can be
used to predict the type of drug use when rituals cannot.
The terms 'rituals' and 'ritual beliefs' have been applied most
frequently to magical or religious phenomena. Goody and others have
included secular events (e.g., civil marriage ceremony) under the
rubric of ritual, but reserve the term to describe behavior in which
"the relationship between means and ends is not intrinsic is either
rational or non-rational" ( Goody, 1961) . What is usually excluded
is any behavior which "is technical or recreational" ( Gluckman, 1962) .
Our use of ritual and social sanction violates this tradition in two
distinct ways. First, we are applying these terms to drug use whether
the goal of the user is recreation, improved mental or physical
performance, or religious experience.3 Second, drug-using rituals and
social sanctions include both rational and nonrational elements. The
intravenous injection of heroin is causally related to the subsequent
high while booting (drawing of blood back into the syringe and re-
injecting one or more times ) is not, although users may believe that
it is.
Our departure from the more restricted meaning of ritual is not
without precedent among anthropologists. Klauser (1964), for example,
discussed the cocktail party as a ritual. It is worth explaining,
however, why the concept 'ritual', even in modified form, is so aptly
applied to drug use.
Within very broad limits, the objective and subjective effects of a
psychoactive drug depend as much on how the drug is used and the
expectations of the user as on its chemical properties. Booting does
increase some heroin users' sense of euphoria. A placebo can
alleviate pain as effectively as morphine provided the user believes
he is receiving an analgesic. Tobacco acts as a powerful hallucinogen
in some Amazonian tribes where it is used infrequently in high doses
(Weil, 1972). These are but a few examples of the mutability of drug
effect which can be attributed to the discrete influence of rituals
and social sanctions, whether rational or nonrational, on the drug
user. Szasz (1975) similarly justifies applying the term to drug use
because it reveals the enormous range in the consequences of that use
which are otherwise hidden by a strictly pharmacological perspective:
Perhaps because of all the major modern nations, the United States is
the least tradition bound, Americans are most prone to misapprehend
and misinterpret ritual as something else: the result is that we
mistake magic for medicine, and confuse ceremonial effect with
chemical cause.
Finally, in this paper we are mainly interested in drug-using rituals
and social sanctions of a specific kind: those which foster
controlled drug use. Drinking muscatel from a bag-wrapped bottle
while squatting in a doorway, or soliciting psychedelics from
strangers on a street corner is not a controlling ritual. The
positive social status attached to the ability to withstand
extraordinarily high doses of LSD, the risk involved in getting
loaded on barbiturates and alcohol, or the size of one's heroin habit
does not constitute a controlling social sanction. In the following
section we outline the nature of social sanctions and rituals which
do promote control, using alcohol as an example. This discussion will
provide a basis from which to examine the existing subcultural social
sanctions and rituals which facilitate the controlled use of illicit
drugs and inhibit their abuse.
RITUALS, SOCIAL SANCTIONS,
AND CONTROLLED ALCOHOL USE
Although alcohol is a powerful and addictive psychoactive drug which
can produce profound physiological and psychological damage, the vast
majority of Americans who drink alcohol manage to control it. There
are an estimated 105 million drinkers in the United States compared
to some 8 million alcoholics (New York Times, April 9, 1973).
Widespread controlled alcohol use can be understood in terms of
culturally based rituals and social sanctions which pattern the way
the drug is used .
Alcohol-using rituals define appropriate use by limiting consumption
to specific occasions or circumstances. Having a highball before
dinner, wine with a meal, a few drinks at a cocktail party, a beer
with the boys after work, or a drink at a business luncheon are
examples. Positive social sanctions permit and even encourage
moderate use of the drug: one need only consider the occasions when a
drink is offered to appreciate how well alcohol is integrated into
the culture as an approved social intoxicant. This social acceptance
of alcohol is paralleled by the minimal legal restrictions on its
consumption, and by the negative sanctions which condemn promiscuous
use and drunkenness. "Know your limit," "Don't drink and drive,"
"Don't mix drinks," and "Never drink before noon" are familiar
proscriptions.
The internalization of these social sanctions and rituals begins in
early childhood. The child sees his parents and other adults
drinking. He learns the possibilities of excess and the varieties of
acceptable drinking patterns from newspapers, movies, magazines, and
television. As he matures, he develops a more unconscious than
conscious sense that alcohol use can be pleasant, controlled, and
socially approved. In some cases, this socialization process is more
direct—children sip wine at religious rituals and celebrations, or
taste their parents' drinks. Many authorities believe that a gradual
and careful early introduction to alcohol by parents contributes to
restrained adult use.4
Many adolescents drink without parental permission, and some test the
wisdom of the social sanctions and rituals with which they are
already familiar by getting drunk and nauseated. However, the central
issue of this testing is not so much how to drink as it is how long
the adolescent must defer approved social drinking. Neither the
adolescent nor his parents have much fear that occasional undercover
experimentation will seriously or permanently disrupt social
relationships and performance at school or work. Throughout this
period of early use, the adolescent has numerous adult role models
for controlled use and he can easily find friends who share his
interest in drinking as well as his resolve to avoid compulsive use.
At some point the young user receives direct or tacit approval for
drinking from parents and other significant adults, marking the end
of family-centered socialization in the use of alcohol.5 As the user
begins to drink in public, he melds the general culture's rituals and
social sanctions and his previous learning into an individualized but
socially acceptable pattern of alcohol use. Social reinforcement for
controlled use continues throughout adult life.
Obviously the influence of rituals and social sanctions on the
alcohol user is partial and imperfect. Other variables—social forces,
personality factors, and perhaps genetic differences—also influence
how groups and individuals use the drug. The social sanctions and
rituals associated with controlled use are not uniformly distributed
in the culture. Some ethnic groups (e.g., the Irish) tend to lack
strong sanctions against drunkenness and have a correspondingly high
incidence of alcoholism (Wilkinson, 1970) . Furthermore, even when
functioning rituals and social sanctions are available, family-
centered socialization may break down. Nonetheless, prevailing
rituals and social sanctions exert a discernible, and crucial,
moderating influence over the way most Americans use alcohol.
The importance of such rituals and social sanctions has been
dramatized by the disastrous effects of the introduction of alcohol
to societies which lacked them. American Indian tribes demonstrate
long-standing, controlled, highly ritualized use of naturally
occurring psychoactive plants such as jimson weed and peyote
(LaBarre, 1938). The Indians' legendary susceptibility to alcoholism
stems essentially from a lack of similar cultural conventions for the
use of the white man's drug. Because the Indian has rejected and has
been denied full membership in American society, his inculturation in
alcohol-using rituals and social sanctions has been retarded.
Consequently, alcoholism persists among Indians and the "consequences
of alcohol use are frequently deep inebriation, rather than courtly
pleasantries" (Freedman, 1974). Wilkinson (1970) reports that when
the Eskimos of Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, were first granted legal
permission to drink, their lack of previous cultural experience and
guidelines for alcohol use resulted in pronounced abuse .
A similar problem exists for Americans who use illicit drugs. It is
not at all surprising that so many of these people wind up as
compulsive users. There are virtually no socially accepted models for
the controlled use of these drugs, no positive cross-generational
education in how to use them, and no reinforcement or assistance in
moderate use (Abrams, 1972)6 The mainstream culture not only fails to
assist controlled, illicit drug use, it actively discriminates
against it. Any and all use of illicit drugs is prohibited. Persons
who use these drugs are regarded as deviant: either as sick and in
need of counseling and rehabilitation, or as criminal and deserving
of punishment. It is clear that use and abuse of illicit drugs must
be understood from a socio-cultural as well as a pharmacological
perspective.
REVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH
By and large, the research literature reflects the reigning cultural
outlook on illicit drug use in that it fails to differentiate between
use and abuse. One reviewer of 35 recent studies states that their
most serious flaw is that "they have lumped together all drug users
without considering the extent of their use" ( Heller, 1972) .
Patterns of drug abuse such as heroin addiction have been singled out
for intensive study, but there has been little effort to delineate
patterns of use lying between the extremes of abstinence and abuse or
compulsive use. The lack of a definite typology for drug-using
behavior bespeaks the continuing and pervasive tendency to confound
quite different patterns of drug consumption.
The terms in the literature which are closest to controlled use are
'chipping', 'occasional use', 'experimenting', and 'tasting'.
'Chipping' and 'occasional use' are usually associated with heroin
and the opiates. 'Taster' (Kaplan, 1971) and
'experimenter' (Keniston, 1968-69) have been specifically applied to
marihuana and psychedelic users. All these terms refer to irregular,
nonaddictive, or minimally abusive drug use, but do not necessarily
connote the elements of moderation, regularity, stability, and non-
abuse which we mean by controlled use.
A computer search of the MEDLINE file7 covering a 47-month period
(January 1969 through November 1972) produced no articles
specifically concerning occasional use of any drug. An informal
search for mention of occasional use, however, yielded several
allusions to occasional use. Jordan Scher (1961, 1966) mentions the
existence of controlled heroin use in work done through the Cook
County Narcotic Project. Isador Chein et al. (1964) note the
existence of "long continued, nonaddictive heroin users." Howard
Becker (1963) discusses occasional marihuana use as a stage preceding
regular use during which "the individual smokes sporadically and
irregularly" because he has not yet established a reliable source for
the drug. W.H.Dobbs (1971) warns that not all applicants to methadone
programs who are using heroin may be drug dependent. John Newmeyer
(1974) found some heroin users who, he feels, should not be regarded
as representative of a junkie population because they "could sample
heroin without becoming addicted."
The focus in each of these sources is more on regular than controlled
use, and little importance is attached to different using patterns.
The authors do not seriously consider regular controlled use as a
stable use pattern for a significant number of people.
To our knowledge only one published study ( Douglas Powell, 1973),
also sponsored by The Drug Abuse Council, Inc., focuses specifically
on occasional drug use or occasional users. Powell interviewed
subjects who had been occasional users of heroin for at least three
years without becoming physically addicted. Many of the using
patterns described in Powell's report, however, appear so unstable or
so damaging that they lie outside the patterns of controlled use we
are investigating. Still, Powell's study supports our efforts in that
he established the existence of occasional ( if not controlled)
heroin users and he found that such users "are responsive to research
and can be studied reliably with relatively simple techniques."
METHODS OF THE DAC STUDY
The major goals of the Drug Abuse Council study are:
1. to locate controlled users of marihuana, psychedelics, and opiates;
2. to describe such users and their various patterns of use; and
3. to identify factors which stabilize and destabilize controlled
use. Potential subjects were initially solicited through
universities, advertisements in the underground press, and a variety
of social service agencies including halfway houses, drug treatment
programs, and counseling centers. Once underway, we found, as Powell
did, that after completing the screening/interview procedure,
subjects were often willing to refer drug-using friends and
acquaintances to the project. Six indigenous data gatherers ( i.e.
members of the drug-using subculture) were recruited to assist in
locating and interviewing subjects.8
The following are the minimum criteria developed for participation in
the project.
1. Subjects had to have used marihuana, a psychedelic, or an opiate
for at least one year.
2. Subjects had to be willing to participate in follow-up interviews.
3. A subject had to have used the drug frequently enough to be
considered a regular user, but not so frequently that he was
physically addicted to it ( in the case of opiates ) or that his
level of use was likely to interfere with effective personal and
social functioning. No precise cutoff points for frequency of use
were established. In practice, a marihuana user who had used only a
dozen times in the previous year was not selected because his use
seemed too infrequent to be regarded as regular, and a weekly user of
psychedelics was not selected because such frequency suggested a
possibly abusive drug-using pattern.
4. When subjects were polydrug users, all of the drugs used
( including alcohol) had to be used rather than abused. A subject who
was a moderate bi-weekly heroin user, but who was physiologically
addicted to barbiturates, was not eligible to participate.
Interviews lasted from one and one half hours to two hours or more.
Subjects were paid approximately $10 per interview. A flexible
interview schedule was adopted to allow the interviewers to pursue
interesting issues as they arose. For each subject data were gathered
on his history of drug use ( including alcohol); his relations to
work and school, as well as to family and mates; his relations with
drug-using and non-drug-using peers; his physical health and
emotional stability; details of drug-using situations; and basic
demographic variables such as age, years of schooling, and social class.
Profile of the sample
For approximately two years interview data have been gathered on 105
controlled users.9 The sample consists of 66 white males, 24 white
females, 9 black males, and 6 black females. Subjects range in age
from 14 to 70 years with most in the 18- to 25-year-old age bracket.
Eighty-seven interviewees demonstrate controlled use of marihuana, 42
have used psychedelics in a controlled way, and 46 are controlled
opiate users ( categories overlap) . Follow-up interviews have been
conducted and are still in progress.
We found that the 105 controlled users can be distinguished from
compulsive users along several dimensions. Subjects maintain ties to
institutions like work or school, and regular social relationships
with non-drug users as well as users. Drug use is important to these
subjects but is only one of many other activities, relegated to
leisure time. Most subjects are deviant only by virtue of their drug
use. Some have a history of criminal activity or school disciplinary
problems, which does not generally overlap their controlled use of a
drug. No subjects manifest physiological or psychological impairment
as a result of controlled use .
Our data contradict the notion that the period of controlled use is a
brief transition stage ending in abuse or abstinence. Subjects with
relatively short histories of controlled use—slightly over one year,
for example—are included in the sample to clarify the manner in which
controlled use is first established. Long-term follow-up will reveal
how stable these subjects' patterns of use are. The majority of
subjects, however, have been controlled users for several years, and
some have maintained controlled use for as long as ten years.
RITUALS, SOCIAL SANCTIONS, AND CONTROLLED
MARIHUANA, PSYCHEDELIC, AND OPIATE USE
Having outlined our methods and profiled the sample, we will confine
ourselves here to a discussion of preliminary findings on the
relation between rituals, social sanctions, and controlled use.10 The
most striking feature of the DAC subjects is that they have acquired
and adhere to rituals and social sanctions which provide a structure
and a mythology for maintaining controlled use and avoiding untoward
drug effects.11
Acquisition of rituals and social sanctions took place over the
course of subjects' illicit drug-using careers. The details of this
process varied among subjects: some had been controlled users from
the outset of their drug-taking; others had been through one or more
periods of compulsive use before firmly establishing control.
Virtually all subjects, however, required the assistance of other
users to construct appropriate rituals and social sanctions out of
the folklore and practices of the diverse subculture of drug takers.
It is this association ( often fortuitous ) with one or more
controlled users which provides the necessary reinforcement for
avoiding compulsive use. The using group redefines what is a highly
deviant activity in the eyes of the larger culture, as an acceptable
social behavior within the group. It reifies social sanctions and
rituals and institutionalizes controlled use. This is consistent with
Jock Young's (1971) observations of drug use in London where he found
that some groups "contain lore of administration, dosage, and use
which tend to keep . . . lack of control in check, plus of course,
informal sanctions against the person who goes beyond these bounds."
All but two of the DAC subjects have been connected to a controlled
using group. Although subjects sometimes use drugs alone, upwards of
80 per cent of their use takes place with others. Use in the company
of drug abusers is rare. Controlled heroin users, for example, tend
to limit their contact with heroin addicts to those occasions when it
is necessary to obtain their drug and to decline invitations to shoot
up with their addict-suppliers.
While association with controlled drug-using groups is the primary
source of controlling rituals and social sanctions for illicit drug
use, it appears that the alcohol education process may be a secondary
source, especially in the case of marihuana use. Subjects often draw
pointed comparisons between social drinking and their use of illicit
drugs. Younger subjects apply the same language—phrases like getting
high and getting off—to both alcohol and illicit drugs. Subjects
describe social gatherings where both alcohol and marihuana are
available and where an individual's preference for one of these drugs
over the other is interpreted as a matter of personal choice rather
than as a symbolic ideological statement about being in or out of the
drug culture. Some subjects treat alcohol and marihuana in much the
same way. John L., 26, is enrolled full time in a university and
holds down a part-time job. When he returns home he usually has a
drink or a joint before dinner, depending, he explains, on his mood
and his plans for the remainder of the evening. It seems then that
controlled users adapt alcohol-using rituals and social sanctions to
their use of illicit drugs.
Taken as a whole the rituals and social sanctions toward controlled
illicit drug use have several major features:
1. They define and approve controlled use and condemn compulsive use .
2. They limit use to physical and social settings conducive to a
positive drug experience.
3. They incorporate the principle that use should be kept infrequent
enough to avoid dependence/addiction and to maximize the desired drug
effect .
4. They identify potential untoward drug effects and prescribe
relevant precautions to be taken before and during use.
5. They assist the user in interpreting and controlling his drug high.
Rituals and social sanctions vary with the pharmacology of the three
drug types we are investigating—marihuana, psychedelics, and opiates—
and with the acceptability of these drugs within and outside the drug
subculture. Therefore, the following, more detailed discussion of
rituals and social sanctions proceeds by drug type.
Marihuana
Marihuana use is less ritualized than psychedelic and opiate use.
Subjects use the drug in a wide range of settings and circumstances:
before going to a movie, at a party, while watching television, or
during a walk in the woods. Controlled users do not usually come
together specifically to take marihuana; they meet to socialize and
the drug is sometimes taken as an adjunct to the occasion. Marihuana
is also more likely to be used alone than the psychedelics or opiates.
This flexibility in marihuana rituals is in part due to the
pharmacology of the drug. Marihuana is a relatively mild and short-
acting intoxicant. Our subjects, as experienced users, find no
difficulty in controlling the drug high,12 and they are able to
function normally if that becomes necessary. The high state,
therefore, is compatible with a variety of public and private
settings.13 A marihuana high is also easily arranged, requiring
neither the apparatus to inject an opiate nor the planning to
accommodate a 6- to 8-hour psychedelic high.
Flexibility in marihuana rituals can also be explained in terms of
the drug's status. The expanding number of marihuana users as well as
the growing acceptance of the drug among users and non-users alike14
has created an environment in which rigid external controls in the
form of rituals are no longer necessary. They have been supplanted by
controlling social sanctions which are less specific and can be
adapted to various using circumstances. DAC subjects 25 years old and
over who began using marihuana in the early to mid-1960's describe
the more marked ritualization of that period. They recall with
nostalgia and humor the dimly lit room, locked doors, music, candles,
incense, people sitting in a circle on the floor, and one joint
passed ceremoniously around the circle. They now regard this behavior
as quaint and unnecessary. As the number of intermittent marihuana
users has risen to some 8 million Americans and the number who have
tried the drug to 26 million ( Boston Globe, 1974), marihuana use has
lost much of its deviant character. Concurrently, social sanctions
for controlled use have been strengthened and have become available
throughout most of the using subculture.
Under these conditions considerable learning about controlled use can
take place before use actually begins. The choice of whether or not
to use marihuana has become a reality for American adolescents, and
most are well aware before making that choice that marihuana does not
cause people to go crazy or to fall apart. Younger DAC subjects ( 18
to 20 years) had known of teachers in their high schools who used
marihuana. Many had older siblings who they knew used the drug. These
subjects had also acquired a sense of what marihuana was like from
friends, the underground press, popular music, novels, and other
sources. Their first few experiences with marihuana were usually
ritualized affairs with one or more newcomers introduced to the drug
by a more experienced user in a secure setting.15 The experienced
users typically provided guidance, demonstrated how best to smoke the
drug, and soothed newcomers' lingering fears. Very quickly, though,
neophyte users moved beyond these structured situations and began the
process of adapting use to a variety of social settings. Most were
able to locate friends with whom to use the drug and with whom they
also shared non-drug-centered interests. The lack of highly specific
rituals should not, therefore, be construed as evidence that
controlled users are reckless in the way they use marihuana. Rather,
the rituals that earlier served as rigid and external controls have
been replaced over the last decade by more general but equally
effective social sanctions. Due to growing familiarity with every
aspect of marihuana use, these sanctions, like those of alcohol, are
internalized; the rituals developed to support these sanctions no
longer need to be so closely adhered to. Interviews with subjects
reveal how these social sanctions operate to ensure control.
Subjects describe marihuana as a relatively innocuous drug, easily
controlled, and difficult to abuse.16 Some expressed genuine surprise
when we asked if they had ever had any difficulty in maintaining
controlled use. Subjects are not, however, messianic about marihuana.
They recognize its potential for abuse and offer guidelines for
sensible use:
In spite of all the rationalizations about how good dope is, I don't
see that I have to have a reason for getting high every time but yet
getting high consistently without a reason for it seems to be a
reason to sort of check things out with yourself.
Another subject comments that if marihuana is used too much the
quality of the high declines and when this happens one should stop
for a while and then return to a pattern of more infrequent use.
Subjects generally subscribe to the ethic that they should not be
high at work or at school. Susan S. works as a housekeeper several
days a week. She explains that although she can clean when she is
stoned, she prefers to restrict her drug use to leisure time.
Controlled users also express the idea that too much marihuana should
not be used at any one time. There are two reasons cited for this:
1. to avoid transient but unpleasant panic reactions or paranoia, and
2. to keep the high controllable so that other activities can be
better enjoyed .
While passing a joint around a group is no longer de rigueur, it
still serves on many occasions to assist the process of adjusting the
intensity of the high. It allows time to pass between each inhalation
during which the user can monitor his own degree of intoxication.
Several subjects state that when using alone or with one or two other
people, they stop after several tokes to let the high catch up with
them and then decide whether they want more. One subject comments
that this is an especially sensible way to proceed when trying out a
new batch of marihuana.
Psychedelics
Psychedelics include a wide range of substances that vary both in
potency and duration of effect: LSD, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin,
MDA, DMT, and others. The illicit status of these drugs creates a
major problem for the user; he cannot be certain what is in the drug
he is sold.17 What is presumed to be mescaline may be LSD. It may be
adulterated with PCP, amphetamines, and other substances—and its
dosage can only be guessed at. Unlike the marihuana high, the
psychedelic high18 usually lasts for several hours. It is an
intensive though not uncontrollable experience, characterized by
perceptual changes, sometimes of a hallucinatory or illusory nature.
The risk of a bad trip is always present and to some degree increased
by the lack of quality control over the drug. For these and other
reasons, psychedelics are regarded as real, i. e., dangerous, drugs
within the drug subculture. They do not have the widespread appeal of
marihuana nor are they treated casually. Most of the rituals and
social sanctions related to the psychedelics deal with making the
drug experience as safe as possible for the user.
For the subjects, psychedelic use is almost invariably a drug-
centered, group activity. Subjects talk about having others with them
who can be relied upon to help cope with a bad trip or unforeseen
events as a requisite for safe tripping: "I have to do it . . . with
someone that I really know well, that I really trust, and there are
some people like that." People who are less intimately acquainted are
sometimes included in the group but if so, the trip is commonly
preceded by a discussion in which everyone tries to get comfortable
with one another, to determine who may need extra help or attention,
and to establish ground rules for the trip. During this preliminary
discussion, an experienced user may be assigned to act as a guide for
a more inexperienced or uneasy user. Group members may decide to
forbid wandering off from the group without letting someone know
because it causes people to worry, and worrying is felt to be
detrimental to a positive drug experience.
Subjects agree that planning the trip is an important matter,even
when participants have taken the drug together before and feel quite
close to one another. The need for structure varies, but pre-trip
planning includes issues such as: what foods or beverages to take
along, what activities to engage in during the trip, whether
thorazine or niacin should be available in case of a bad trip, or
whether talking people down is preferable to medicating them. This
planning reaffirms the participants' sense of shared intentions and
strengthens their capability to control the drug high.
Subjects are adamant about using psychedelics in a proper setting —a
good place. For many this means tripping in a relatively secluded
spot in the country. What seems important, however, is that the space
is secure and comfortable. A city tripper said, "I'll take a walk
outside but it'll always be with the notion that I can come back to
this kind of sanctuary for myself in the house, and so it's no
threat." This subject and many others expressed surprise and some
disdain for users who violated the principle that psychedelic use is
a taxing experience that should be confined to special settings:
I'm amazed that . . . I was living last year with a dude who's 17
years old and is from the West Coast. He was telling me that when he
was going to junior high school he would just drop acid in the
morning and go to school, which completely weirded me out . . . and
just could ride with any kind of horrible thing . . . Amazing.
Another social sanction/ritual which subjects observe is the need to
be internally prepared for psychedelic use. One subject describes
this as "making peace with the public reality . . . mentally putting
your house, your affairs, in order, you know, like, what's the Zen
thing . . . emptying out the teacup first." Others talk simply about
needing to be in a "good mood" and needing "energy" to undertake the
experience. Some subjects appear to ritualize this internal process
by tidying up the space in which they are going to use the drug.
All the conventions described above represent attempts to ensure a
good trip and prevent a bad one. We now turn to the issue of how
rituals and social sanctions may inhibit compulsive psychedelic use.
Subjects repeatedly advocate using psychedelics at no less than two-
week intervals. In practice, their use is far less frequent than this—
less than once a month is the most typical using pattern and, with
time, use consistently becomes even less frequent. Avoidance of
compulsive use, however, is probably not so much the consequence of
negative sanctions as it is the result of a combination of two other
factors:
1. the positive value controlled users attach to the consciousness-
altering properties of psychedelics, and
2. the fact that tolerance to these consciousness-altering properties
goes up very rapidly as use becomes frequent. Our subjects who are
interested in experiencing precisely these effects find that too
frequent use of the drug is counterproductive.
Some psychedelic users who are not interested in the consciousness-
changing qualities of these drugs may become compulsive users. For
them, it is the speedy, stimulating effects of psychedelics that are
appealing19 -effects which are enhanced with larger, more frequent
doses of the drug. Although we have little direct evidence to support
it, we would guess that this kind of compulsive psychedelic user is
associated with those groups in the subculture which negatively value
consciousness change or do not recognize it as a primary drug effect.
By comparing older and younger subjects we have identified some
shifts in psychedelic-using rituals and social sanctions. Subjects
who began use in the mid-sixties share a sense that psychedelics
should be used for "personal growth" rather than recreational
purposes. They discuss tripping as an activity which is undertaken to
accomplish a worthy goal—to learn more about oneself, to grow
intellectually, to transcend ordinary perceptual boundaries, and so
on. However, subjects who began use in the past five years have
broadened their reasons for using psychedelics to encompass plainly
recreational goals.
Younger subjects may trip for a highly rationalized purpose but they
are equally inclined to trip simply to enjoy the high state. This
trend is difficult to interpret and we have yet to make final
judgments. We speculate, however, that the expanded goals of
psychedelic users indicate a growing familiarity with psychedelics
and less guilt about their use. Without wishing to demean the motives
of older users we hypothesize that they needed to assign some
constructive purpose to tripping to justify their use of drugs which
were then seen as more dangerous and powerful .
We anticipate that as the psychedelic-using population grows,
recreational use will increase and, as with marihuana, will become
less ritualized although not less controlled. We do not expect,
however, that psychedelic-using rituals will ever approach the degree
of flexibility and diversity of marihuana-using rituals. Quite
probably psychedelic use will become more acceptable and social
sanctions more available; but because of the high impact, long
duration drug effect and the related tendency to keep psychedelic use
infrequent there is both less need and less social opportunity to
internalize social sanctions. Thus, there will remain a dependence on
rituals ( on external controls) which should limit the flexibility
and diversity of psychedelic use.
Opiates
The larger culture condemns the illicit use of opiates more than any
other drug. Popular mythology about the evils of the opiates and
heroin, in particular, extends deep into the drug subculture itself.
Many of the marihuana and psychedelic users in the DAC study do not
recognize the possibility of controlled opiate use, even though they
have identified and dispelled many of the larger culture's myths
about their own drugs of choice.20
The controlled opiate users21 in our study are painfully aware that
they are seen as deviant. They tend to keep their use a closely
guarded secret from everyone but their one or two dealers and other
controlled opiate users. One of the researchers knew a woman he
considered to be a reasonably close friend for several years, and
although he had been previously involved in drug-related research, it
was not until he became part of the DAC study that she felt free to
"confess" that she had been a controlled heroin user all the while. ,
The relationship of controlled opiate users to addict/compulsive
opiate users is as fraught with dangers and difficulties as it is
necessary. One way controlled users can assert their normalcy is to
spurn and condemn junkies, but they must rely on junkies to obtain
opiates.22 Addicts do not understand and are often threatened by
controlled users' peculiar relation to opiates. So, on the one hand,
controlled users get poor quality opiates at great cost from junkies
("You're always getting burned"), while on the other hand, they are
repeatedly and seductively invited to become full-fledged members of
the junkie subculture. The controlled user's constant dilemma is to
become friendly enough with an addict to establish a reliable contact
for quality opiates, but not so friendly that his refusals to fully
participate in the addict's subculture insult the dealer who might
then cut off the supply.
Beset on all sides, controlled users are bound together in small
isolated groups that develop idiosyncratic, rigid rituals and social
sanctions. These groups are fragile and drug-centered because it is
difficult to find controlled users who are compatible as friends—the
inverse of the situation with marihuana we described earlier.
Most of the rituals of controlled opiate users are indistinguishable
from those of compulsive users. In both groups, people squabble over
who gets off first, belts are used as ties, eye-droppers are used
instead of syringes, booting is common, and works are cleaned but not
boiled. The main reason for this ritual-sharing is that there is no
highly visible, communicative population of controlled users from
whom discrete rituals can evolve. Rituals are still being borrowed
from the addict subculture—the only readily available source of
expertise about the drug. There are also two other explanations for
this phenomenon. First, while the life style of the addict is
repugnant to most controlled users, they sometimes find the addict's
bold outlaw stance attractive; partaking of the addict's ritual may
be an expression of wistful identification. Second, several subjects
were addicts before they became controlled users, and they have
retained their former drug-using rituals (booting is probably the
best example) .
Several controlled users have added new elements to the addict
ritual. One subject, for example, shifts the emphasis away from
getting off by tacking on middle-class amenities—he plays the good
host by serving wine and food to his user guests ( this without any
of the nausea which commonly accompanies opiate use) and all spend
the evening together in conversation. Another user protects herself
from a possible overdose by shooting a little of the drug, waiting to
gauge its effect, and then shooting the remainder. By and large,
however. controlled users' rituals are not well distinguished from
those of compulsive users—especially in details of drug administration.
The social sanctions around controlled use are distinctive.
Controlled users adhere to a variety of rules for opiates, most of
which are summarized by the maxim: "Don't become dependent." They
well appreciate that they can become addicted or compulsive users.
Ex-addict subjects have firm rules about frequency of use. One is a
woman who has used heroin on an average of three to four times a
month for over four years. Occasionally, when a break in her
commitments to work and to her child permits, she goes on a using
spree that lasts about a week. Even while on vacation, however, she
will not use heroin more frequently than every other day. In general,
subjects limit their opiate use far more than is needed to avoid
addiction. One subject has confined his heroin use to weekends only
for the past five years. One woman used heroin twice a month and on
special occasions such as birthdays and New Year's, for a year and a
half. Then, troubled by her tolerance to some of the drug's effects,
she deliberately cut back use to only once a month. She ignored the
fact that the variability in the potency of black market drugs could
have accounted for her requiring the use of two bags instead of the
usual one bag (on only two occasions) to obtain the same effects as
when she used previously.
These and other examples indicate that many controlled users regard
heroin as more rapidly addicting than is warranted, though they feel
that it can be used moderately. This is understandable in view of the
prevailing myths about heroin's power and the exposure controlled
users have to addicts who have succumbed to the drug.
Controlled using subjects observe common sanctions against behaving
like or becoming overly involved with junkies and compulsive users.
Controlled users may chastise one another for manifesting
irresponsible junkie-like behavior. Users who are unable to control
the drug's effects may be chastised. A user of codeine-based cough
syrup and of Doriden indicated that despite the somnolence induced by
these drugs, people are expected to act responsibly— "One (cigarette)
burn and you're thrown out. " Being cheated by dealers is a fact of
life, but a controlled user who cheats fellow users is punished by
being called a junkie. Controlled users frown upon spending too much
money on heroin because it suggests the junkie's lack of control:
"Just 'cause I had the money don't necessary mean I would cop . . .
of course, I wouldn't steal to get the money to cop, there's no need
for it 'cause I don't have a habit."
Shooting up like a junkie is O.K., but shooting up with junkies is
not, because this symbolizes a loss of control. A couple who had
regular access to opiates through the woman's addicted sister and
brother-in-law stopped relying on them for opiates because of the
social pressure to use the drug with them. They began borrowing a car
and driving several miles to a copping site in another city where
they knew they could obtain heroin from street dealers.
DISCUSSION AND NEW DIRECTIONS
Our findings show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, controlled
use of illicit drugs is possible and is fostered by subcultural
rituals and social sanctions that support controlled use and curtail
drug abuse. We have also observed how the controlled use of alcohol
is patterned by established, broad based rituals and social
sanctions. These findings and observations strongly suggest that the
evolution and widespread acceptance of social controls for illicit
drugs, similar to those for alcohol, would provide a viable means of
preventing drug abuse.
Ironically, the present attempt to eliminate all use of illicit drugs
undermines users' ability to control them. Users receive no
assistance from the larger culture for control. Instruction in how to
use illicit drugs is now relegated to peer using groups which are, at
best, an inadequate substitute for family-centered socialization.
Association with controlled users is as much a matter of chance as it
is of personal choice.23 Because illicit drug use must be a covert
activity, newcomers are not presented with an array of using groups
from which to choose. Early in their using careers, many DAC subjects
became involved with groups in which members were not well schooled
in controlled use, or with groups in which compulsive use and risk-
taking were the norms. In both cases subjects went through periods
when drug use interfered with their ability to function and when they
frequently experienced untoward drug effects such as bad trips. These
individuals were later able to achieve controlled use, but many are
not. To revoke personal commitments and realign oneself with new
using companions is a difficult and again uncertain process.
The culture's active opposition to illicit drug use also alienates
users from adult guidance. Asking adults for advice or approval even
in a guarded way is risky, and raises difficult issues for parents
and users alike. The deviant subcultures become more attractive
because they insulate the user from the mainstream culture's
disapproval and facilitate drug use.
Of course, the mainstream culture's opposition to illicit drug use is
not wholly negative in its effects. Present legal and social
sanctions do dissuade some people from taking these drugs and no
doubt influence others to abandon their use, thereby preventing some
unknown quantity of abuse. Unfortunately, it is not clear how many
people would take these drugs if they were given an unobstructed
choice about it, nor is it clear how many would go on to become
abusers. What is clear is that the attempt to eliminate all use of
these drugs contributes to their abuse by people who take them.
It seems safe to assume that no matter how massive the investments in
law enforcement and education, neither the drugs themselves nor
people's interest in taking them will be eliminated. There is every
indication that illicit drug use will continue to rise as it has over
the last decade. Given this prognosis and the failings and high
social costs of our present restrictive social policy, it seems not
only reasonable but necessary to place illicit drugs under social
control so that their abuse can be minimized.
Ideally, social management of drug use affords advantages which
prohibition does not. Drug use is normalized with other life
activities and is transformed from a covert to an overt activity
subject to the pressures of public scrutiny. Drug users regulate
themselves and other users . Social learning in proper ( controlled)
drug use becomes available. Rituals and social sanctions provide
freedom to pursue a recreational activity, albeit a complex and at
times risky one, in an individualized way while discouraging
detrimental drug-using behavior. Drug-taking loses its appeal as
"forbidden fruit." Users who experience difficulties are more likely
to seek assistance because they can do so without having to declare
themselves deviant and morally bankrupt, and without the risk of
punitive reprisals. The quality of drugs can be regulated and thus,
untoward drug effects greatly reduced.
The chief difficulty in achieving social control over illicit drugs
is that enormous changes would have to occur in both public attitude
and social policy for effective controlling rituals and social
sanctions to develop. Rituals and social sanctions cannot be supplied
ready-made to drug users or potential users. We would, therefore, not
recommend wholesale immediate legalization of marihuana,
psychedelics, and the opiates precisely because too abrupt a shift in
policy would leave many users without the elaborate social support
needed to prevent abuse.
It is possible, however,
1. to alleviate major legal obstacles to their development, and
2. to provide more comprehensive and value-neutral information about
licit and illicit drugs to the general population, making more user/
non-user contact and discussion possible and, in turn, permitting
further dissemination of controlling conventions. Some steps could be
taken now which would both strengthen the existing subcultural
rituals and social sanctions and serve to demystify the power and
danger of these drugs generally.
Certainly decriminalization of marihuana should be extended beyond
those few states which have adopted it, and federal penalties for use
should be dropped. Further research on the possible medical
applications of marihuana and the psychedelics should be undertaken,
and results sufficiently publicized so that their public image as
"bad" drugs can be dissipated.24 Heroin should be made available to
physicians as a legitimate analgesic, and experimentation with heroin
maintenance clinics for the treatment of addicts should also begin
with careful control.
Drug education programs which are no more than disguised campaigns to
eliminate use should be replaced with genuine efforts to provide
users and non-users with some rudimentary pharmacological data and
with detailed information about the consequences of various patterns
of use. Doctors, teachers, counselors, and others who encounter drug
users should be instructed in how to distinguish use from abuse—it
simply makes no sense to alienate and undermine those segments of the
population of drug-takers who stand against abuse.
These recommendations represent the first in a number of changes
which would be required before illicit drugs could be made available
under minimal legal restraints. We cannot detail here the entire
sequence of such changes. In general, we recommend that social policy
keep better pace with developments among drug users themselves than
has so far been the case.
In closing, we suggest that the policy goals and changes we have
outlined are part of a larger historical process by which drugs are
gradually incorporated into a culture and by which use replaces abuse
as a dominant using pattern. Turning again to alcohol as an example,
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 75 to 80 per cent of
those who drank were alcoholics (Harrison, 1964) . A few decades ago
alcohol use was prohibited and the temperance movement pronounced it
an evil and dangerous substance. Today 95 per cent of those who drink
are controlled users. This figure might still be improved by further
normalizing and not glorifying alcohol use, e.g., by banning
advertising which relates alcohol use to sexual prowess.
In fact, illicit drugs are much further along in the process of
becoming acceptable and controllable than the culture has been
willing to acknowledge. If the incidence of untoward drug effects is
an indication, we can see clear movement with respect to marihuana
and the psychedelics. Becker (1963) notes that shortly after World
War I the incidence of "panic reaction" to marihuana was higher than
in the mid-1930's by which time marihuana use had increased in a
number of groups. Today, such reactions are quite rare and are more
typical of older (30+) users who have had no prior experience with
marihuana. A few years ago the treatment of bad trips (resulting from
use of psychedelics) accounted for as much as 20 to 35 per cent of
hospital emergency admissions. Since that time psychedelic use has
grown at a faster rate than the use of any other illicit drug ( Drug
Use in America, 1973), but the number of hospital admissions has
dropped markedly. As of July 1974 the Massachusetts Mental Health
Center did not know when they last had such an admission, but they
were sure that it had been years rather than months ago (Grinspoon,
1974) . The Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, which furnishes
emergency medical teams to rock concerts, reports ( Smith, 1975) that
at a recent concert attended by some 10, 000 persons where
psychedelics were openly distributed only two adverse reactions came
to the attention of the medical team. In both cases, the patients
were quickly quieted by talking with members of the team and sent
home after fifteen to thirty minutes. A recent National Drug Abuse
Council Survey Project shows that the majority of college and high
school students who use drugs cannot be distinguished from many of
those who do not and never have used drugs (Yankelovich, Skelly &
White, 1975, Yankelovich, 1975) .
These data suggest that the development of controlled using patterns
for illicit drugs by substantial numbers of users is probably a
recent occurrence. The legal system is not able to and probably
should not reflect every shift in using patterns. But, if controlled
using patterns stabilize, as our work indicates they have for
marihuana and the psychedelics, and viable social sanctions which
permit this use develop, then in time the laws should respond to the
new social position of the illicit drug and the drug user. Obviously,
it is difficult to develop rituals and social sanctions which are
against the law; both the drug user and the public must tolerate a
serious amount of ambiguity and anxiety. The user takes real risks by
breaking the law ( greater risks than are imposed by the chemistry of
the drugs ), and the public suffers the disruptions of laws which now
punish more than they deter.
It does not seem likely that this situation will be rectified
immediately. However, it is possible to monitor changing using
patterns in order to determine how best to integrate these changes
into the legal system. Until now there has been considerable
resistance not only to legal changes but even to recognition of
changing drug-using patterns. The study and dissemination of new
information on how people develop successful drug-using patterns can
proceed without neglecting the study of drug abuse when it occurs.
Our work shows that controlled use of illicit drugs exists in this
country and is the result of subcultural rituals and social sanctions.
N O T E S
1. The material for this paper was gathered as part of a study of the
social basis of drug abuse prevention funded by The Drug Abuse
Council, Inc. 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. The work of
Richard C. Jacobson and Deborah Patt on that study was invaluable to
this paper. Since July 1 1976 research on controlled use has
continued under National Institute on Drug Abuse Grant No. 1 R01 DA
01360-OlAl. (back)
2. "In more tribal cultures social sanctions are rarely
institutionalized in a body of abstract law. Principles of rightness
which underlie the activities are largely tacit And they are not the
subject of much explicit criticism, or even of very much reflective
thought . . . Legislation, though it may occur, is not the
characteristic form of legal action" (Redfield, 1971). (back)
3. Presumably drug use for religious purposes, such as the use of
peyote by members of the Native American Church, would qualify as a
ritual in the more classical sense. (back)
4. Wilkinson (1970) reviews the relevant research in his Appendix A.
Several references to Wilkinson follow as his work on alcohol closely
parallels our own on the social determinants of controlled illicit
drug use. (back)
5. In many families the formal offer of a drink constitutes an
important quasi-rite de passage from adolescence to adulthood. (back)
6. Research has shown that in abstinent families where parallel
conditions exist with respect to alcohol, the potential for children
becoming alcoholics is greatly enhanced (Wilkinson, 1970, Appendix
A). (back)
7. The MEDLINE file contains 400,000 citations from 1,100 of the
journals indexed for Index Medicus. (back)
8. Indigenous data gatherers were trained in interviewing technique.
All interviews were tape recorded, allowing research staff to monitor
their work. Three of the data gatherers were recruited from within
the sample—two women and one man—and proved extremely capable and
reliable. They contributed the bulk of the data which were not
gathered by the research staff. (back)
9. Interviews have also been conducted with approximately 20 non-
controlled drug users. Especially at the outset of the DAC study,
potential subjects were referred to us who turned out, in fact. to be
compulsive users. Interviews with these subjects provided valuable
comparative data and were used as a basis to refine the interview
schedule. (back)
10. Further information on methods and other aspects of our findings
are reported elsewhere: (1) R. C. Jacobson & N. E. Zinberg, 1975, The
social basis of drug abuse prevention. Drug Abuse Council Special
Studies Series, SS-5. Washington, D. C.: The Drug Abuse Council, Inc.
(2) N. E. Zinberg, 1975, Addiction and ego function. The
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 30:567-588. (3) N. E . Zinberg, R.
C. Jacobson & W. M. Harding, 1975, Rituals and social sanctions as a
basis of drug abuse prevention. The American Journal of Drug and
Alcohol Abuse, 2:165-182. (4) N. E. Zinberg & R. C. Jacobson, 1976,
The natural history of chipping. The American Journal of Psychiatry,
133:37-40. (back)
11. While the influence of personality, family background, social
class, availability of the drug, and other variables on drug use
could be traced for individual subjects, no consistent relationship
has been found between these factors and controlled use. (back)
12. Weil & Zinberg (1968) found differences in ability to control the
drug high among naive and experienced marihuana users in a controlled
setting. Becker (1963) observed that users' appreciation and control
of the drug high is learned; and that this learning allows the user
to function adequately while under the influence of marihuana. (back)
13. Users of the psychedelics and opiates were also able to control
their highs but found it more difficult and usually limited use to
protected settings. (back)
14. Most Americans view marihuana as an illicit, "bad" drug, but as
less "bad" than heroin, LSD, cocaine, etc. (back)
15. In effect, new users recapitulate many of the elements of
marihuana rituals of the early sixties in their preliminary use of
the drug. (back)
16. We found it more difficult to locate marihuana and psychedelic
abusers than controlled users. This situation was reversed for the
opiates. (back)
17. Access to correctly labeled psychedelics is confined to a few
knowledgeable, experienced, and wed connected users. One user in the
DAC sample was able to obtain psychedelics from a reputable source,
and often had the drugs tested by a chemist before use. (back)
18. There are substantive differences in the high states induced by
the various psychedelics, which are beyond the scope of this article
(Zinberg, 1974). (back)
19. Psychedelics are chemically related to amphetamines. We are
presuming here that these compulsive users are, in fact, using
psychedelics and not wrongly labeled amphetamines. (back)
20. Standing with the larger culture against opiate use may help
marihuana and psychedelic users to view their own drug use as
comparatively "good". (back)
21. The preponderance of controlled opiate subjects were heroin users
who used dilaudid, codeine, and other pharmaceutical opiates on an
occasional basis. Only three subjects did not use heroin ( see
footnote following) . Therefore, discussion will center on heroin
use. (back)
22. Three controlled users had regular access to opiates without
going through a dealer: a physician who used morphine; a hemophiliac
who could obtain pharmaceuticals from physicians under the pretense
of relieving the pain of a hematoma; a user, whose drug of choice was
codeine, who obtained cough syrup from a pharmacist willing to ignore
existing legal regulations. These cases are described in some detail
in Zinberg & Jacobson (1975). (back)
23. This is less true for marihuana users than for psychedelic and
opiate users. (back)
24. We are not assuming that the results of this research will be
uniformly positive. Whatever the results. by making these drugs the
object of medical research the idea that no drug is inherently "good"
or "bad", that any drug can be used in a variety of ways, would be
advanced. (back)
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