marijuana seeds in

role of marijuana. Yet how easily we
transfer the "effects" of this drug, whether American marijuana or the more potent Middle
Eastern hashish, from one cultural and economic setting to the other. It is doubtful that the
comparison is relevant at all, since none of the basic conditions are remotely similar.
The promarijuana lobby tells us that marijuana is a gentle herb, nothing more than
pressed flowers and leaves, a peaceful and love-inducing substance. Both sides assume
that there is some sort of property lodged within the drug itself that dictates to its users
how to act under its influence. But whether it does, in fact, have this pacific property or
not depends wholly on who uses it. If it is used by a social group that thinks marijuana is a
pacific weed, whose members, when initiating a neophyte, preach a gospel of peace and
love, discourage violent displays, and weave this peace motif into the things they do when
high, then we should not be surprised that marijuana turns out to have a peace-inducing
property. Only the most naive believes that marijuana creates a peaceful way of life out of
whole cloth and induces it in those who are not peaceful. Both motorcycle gangs and
hippies are prone to use marijuana but with very different results. Obviously, there is more
to the picture than the laboratory properties of the drug.
I will attempt in this volume an overall study of the sociology of marijuana use. I will
explore the myths clinging to it, the attitudes of the contestants in the marijuana debate,
the question of who uses it, under what circumstances, and with what consequences. To
answer many of the questions concerning marijuana use, it is necessary at times to leave
the sociological level and deal with related issues. For instance, when discussing the
effects of marijuana, I will reject the radically sociologistic approach—that the effects of
the drug are wholly a function of its social definitions—and attempt an exposition on the
objective properties of the drug's pharmacology. In other words, I have adopted a
multidimensional approach, my perspective often shifts from one level to another. At the
same time we wish to understand the drug's nonsociological aspects more or less only
insofar as they relate to, interpenetrate with, influence and are influenced by, the users'
social life and the lives of those who interact with them. We court confusion with this kind
of multifaceted perspective, but it is necessary if we are to understand the totality of
marijuana's impact on the social life of any society.
Overview of Marijuana and Marijuana Use
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The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 1
Incidences of events connected with cannabis use, whether true or phantasmagoric,
survive historically because they are useful ideologically. The history of marijuana use is,
in itself, a study in creative mythology. This is as true of the history of the Assassins as it
is of the Indian peace pipe.Buy Marijuana Seeds Marijuana Seeds Canada
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mplex, subtle, and abstruse
philosophical systems requiring volumes far weightier than this to characterize. Yet,
throughout the broad spectrum of opinions for the drug, some more or less consistent
ideological threads may be detected. To begin with, users and supporters are generally
eager to neutralize arguments asserting the drug's harm; there is an almost complete
uniformity on the promarijuana side in regard to the absence of damaging effects of
cannabis. Users who feel that the drug is harmful almost invariably discontinue its use.
Now, we might expect this to be true by definition: he who uses something is not likely to
assert that it is dangerous. Not necessarily so, however. It is possible for a weighing
process to have taken place, for the user to say that it is somewhat dangerous, but on the
whole it's not all bad. Or we might encounter someone who recognizes the compulsive
aspects of an activity and who wishes he could stop, but feels that he cannot, for instance,
the alcoholic. The chronic amphetamine user will readily grant the harmfulness of his
drug, admitting, wistfully, that his body is slowly being destroyed. This does not deter him
from using the drug; he is still rhapsodic in praising it.
It is significant, therefore, that the marijuana supporter invariably denies that the drug
has any significant dangers associated with its use. He further asserts that were he to
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The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 4
discover some hidden danger associated with the use of pot, he would stop using it.
Both sides of the dispute claim to be positivistic in their stance. Each believes that facts
will vindicate its position. With regard to marijuana, the American Medical Association
writes: "An informed citizenry... is the most effective deterrent of all,"1] and the New
York State Narcotics Addiction Control Commission designed as a drug prevention
organization, in its official publication, asks: "Will Facts Put Lid on Pot at Ithaca?"2] The
procannabis side, too, assumes that an impartial, unbiased survey on marijuana use will
inevitably uphold its claims. The two purposes of LEMAR stated in its constitution were
"to disseminate information about marijuana and the anti-marijuana laws" and to promote
"the re-legalization of marijuana use, possession and sale in the United States" and are
held to be causally related; if more people knew about the true nature of pot, the laws
outlawing it would be abolished. The only reason that Congress and the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics were able to push the 1937 statute through was public ignorance about the
harmlessness of the drug; LEMAR hopes to correct that ignorance. In any case, the
bedrock of the promarijuana position is that the drug is essentially harmless. Thus,
marijuana propaganda will nearly always include a point-for-point refutation of the
antimarijuana demonology.3]
Generally, the issue is whether or not marijuana may properly be lagrow-a-weed-plant
kali mist
e deviant from his own perspective as biased. But if we look at the agents of
social control as one out of a multiplicity of definers of social reality, no more or less
valid than any other, then the possibility is open for us to see the deviant through his own
eyes. If, on the other hand, we adopt a condescending social worker point of view toward
him, that is, the view that we must help him to adjust to society, we will be wholly
incapable of understanding him.
We wish, therefore, to adopt a perspective which decentralizes sources of realitydefinitions.
We wish to throw open a dialogue with all participants in the activity that we
are studying. No one definition of the situation will be allowed to impose itself on any and
all participants. Each version of reality will glint a particle of the total (even though each
version will almost invariably claim to tell the whole story). Each will be incomplete,
although valid on its own level.
Another way of saying something similar is that we assume intentionality on the actor's
part. Marijuana users are fully aware of what they are doing; they enter into the activity,
from start to finish, with open eyes. They are not unwitting dupes, they have not been
conned by a clever "slick," eager to make a profit from their naiveté. They have chosen to
smoke marijuana. There is an active element in their choosing. They imagine themselves,
prior to the act of becoming "turned on," actually smoking. They carry the actions
through, in their minds, conceiving of what they would do "if." They have weighed
alternatives. They have considered social costs. They operate on the basis of a value
system; marijuana use is in part an outgrowth of that value system; using it is a realistic
and a rational choice in that marijuana use will often be and obtain for them what they
anticipate. The basic values may themselves be thought of as irrational by someone with a
more positivistic and scientific-technological-economistic point of view, but this is largely
a matter of definition. Let me illustrate: if I want to become high, smoking marijuana is a
rational choice, but drinking a cup of coffee to attain that state is irrational. The value of
becoming high might be viewed as irrational within the framework of certain values
prevalent in America today, but many marijuana users question those very values.
This point of view holds that marijuana use grows out of many of the processes in
society which we all take to be normal. It is convenient to label as pathological any
phenomenon that we do not like. We attempt to legitimate our biases by claiming for an
activity traits that we reject. Thus, marijuana use becomes a product of boredom—because
boredom is a bad thing, and if marijuana use is produced by it, marijuana use must also be
a bad thing. Or it is rebellion against the older generation or a result of a broken home or
the wish to escape reality or to avoid meaningful attachments to other peopl