ent, will influence what he feels, sees, and does.
Marijuana smokers often report paranoia as one of the effects of the drug on their psychic
state while high. Many, however, qualify this with the reservation that it is only because
of the legal climate, because of the drug's illegality, their fears of being arrested, the fact
that a friend may have been arrested, that this mood is engendered.
In other words, part of
the setting of all users is the fact that the outside world punishes the act, and this
realization is often woven into the experience itself, in the form of fear. Yet to say that this
effect is a direct product of the drug, and not the legal setting in which the user consumes
the drug, is to distort the reality of the situation. As Kenneth Keniston said in a drug
symposium, given February 28, 1969 at the "New Worlds" Drug Symposium, at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, "The only thing that we know for sure about
(26 of 34)4/15/2004 1:07:27 AM
The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 7
marijuana is that you can get arrested." The smoker knows this, and sometimes responds,
while high, accordingly. Those who charge the drug with generating panic states are often
the very same ones who themselves produce them. Allen Ginsberg attributes his
sometimes-feeling of paranoia to the prevailing legal climate:
I myself experience... paranoia when I smoke marijuana and for that reason
smoke it in America more rarely than I did in countries where it is legal. I
noticed a profound difference of effect. The anxiety was directly traceable
to fear of being apprehended and treated as a deviant criminal and put
through the hassle of social disapproval, ignominious Kafkian tremblings in
vast court buildings coming to be judged, the helplessness of being
overwhelmed by force or threat of deadly force and put in brick and iron
cell.
From my own experience and the experience of others I have concluded
that most of the horrific effects and disorders described as characteristic of
marijuana "intoxication" by the US Federal Treasury
nodes buds marijuana
Department's Bureau
of Narcotics are, quite the reverse, precisely traceable back to the effects on
consciousness not of the narcotic but of the law and threatening activities of
the US Federal Treasury Department.
.
.
Bureau of Narcotics itself.25]
Another difficulty with the contention that marijuana is psychotomimetic is that it is
never clearly defined what constitutes a psychotic episode. Thus, at one end of the
spectrum of adverse reactions, we might find various vague and superficial sequelae, such
as nervousness after drinking coffee, which are easily dispelled. It is possible to place any
effect on the Procrustian bed of value judgments; hysterical laughter, for instance: "I
laughed for hours at 'Please pass the potato chips.'" Certainly laughing for hours at such a
straightforward request is not normal. Yet the respondent reported the event in positive
terms; a clinician might see itent, will influence what he feels, sees, and does.
Marijuana smokers often report paranoia as one of the effects of the drug on their psychic
state while high. Many, however, qualify this with the reservation that it is only because
of the legal climate, because of the drug's illegality, their fears of being arrested, the fact
that a friend may have been arrested, that this mood is engendered. In other words, part of
the setting of all users is the fact that the outside world punishes the act, and this
realization is often woven into the experience itself, in the form of fear. Yet to say that this
effect is a direct product of the drug, and not the legal setting in which the user consumes
the drug, is to distort the reality of the situation. As Kenneth Keniston said in a drug
symposium, given February 28, 1969 at the "New Worlds" Drug Symposium, at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, "The only thing that we know for sure about
(26 of 34)4/15/2004
Weed In Edinburgh 1:07:27 AM
The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 7
marijuana is that you can get arrested." The smoker knows this, and sometimes responds,
while high, accordingly. Those who charge the drug with generating panic states are often
the very same ones who themselves produce them. Allen Ginsberg attributes his
sometimes-feeling of paranoia to the prevailing legal climate:
I myself experience... paranoia when I smoke marijuana and for that reason
smoke it in America more rarely than I did in countries where it is legal. I
noticed a profound difference of effect.
The anxiety was directly traceable
to fear of being apprehended and treated as a deviant criminal and put
through the hassle of social disapproval, ignominious Kafkian tremblings in
vast court buildings coming to be judged, the helplessness of being
overwhelmed by force or threat of deadly force and put in brick and iron
cell.
From my own experience and the experience of others I have concluded
that most of the horrific effects and disorders described as characteristic of
marijuana "intoxication" by the US Federal Treasury Department's Bureau
of Narcotics are, quite the reverse, precisely traceable back to the effects on
consciousness not of the narcotic but of the law and threatening activities of
the US Federal Treasury Department.
.
.
Bureau of Narcotics itself.25]
Another difficulty with the contention that marijuana is psychotomimetic is that it is
never clearly defined what constitutes a psychotic episode. Thus, at one end of the
spectrum of adverse reactions, we might find various vague and superficial sequelae, such
as nervousness after drinking coffee, which are easily dispelled. It is possible to place any
effect on the Procrustian bed of value judgments; hysterical laughter, for instance: "I
laughed for hours at 'Please pass the potato chips.'" Certainly laughing for hours at such a
straightforward request is not normal. Yet the respondent reported the event in positive
terms; a clinician might see itent, will influence what he feels, sees, and does.
Marijuana smokers often report paranoia as one of the effects of the drug on their psychic
state while high. Many, however, qualify this with the reservation that it is only because
of the legal climate, because of the drug's illegality, their fears of being arrested, the fact
that a friend may have been arrested, that this mood is engendered. In other words, part of
the setting of all users is the fact that the outside world punishes the act, and this
realization is often woven into the experience itself, in the form of fear. Yet to say that this
effect is a direct product of the drug, and not the legal setting in which the user consumes
the drug, is to distort the reality of the situation. As Kenneth Keniston said in a drug
symposium, given February 28, 1969 at the "New Worlds" Drug Symposium, at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, "The only thing that we know for sure about
(26 of 34)4/15/2004 1:07:27 AM
The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 7
marijuana is that you can get arrested." The smoker knows this, and sometimes responds,
while high, accordingly. Those who charge the drug with generating panic states are often
the very same ones who themselves produce them. Allen Ginsberg attributes his
sometimes-feeling of paranoia to the prevailing legal climate:
I myself experience... paranoia when I smoke marijuana and for that reason
smoke it in America more rarely than I did in countries where it is legal. I
noticed a profound difference of effect.
The anxiety was directly traceable
to fear of being apprehended and treated as a deviant criminal and put
through the hassle of social disapproval, ignominious Kafkian tremblings in
vast court buildings coming to be judged, the helplessness of being
overwhelmed by force or threat of deadly force and put in brick and iron
cell.
From my own experience and the experience of others I have concluded
that most of the horrific effects and disorders described as characteristic of
marijuana "intoxication" by the US Federal Treasury Department's Bureau
of Narcotics are, quite the reverse, precisely traceable back to the effects on
consciousness not of the narcotic but of the law and threatening activities of
the US Federal Treasury Department... Bureau of Narcotics itself.[25
Another difficulty with the contention that marijuana is psychotomimetic is that it is
never clearly defined what constitutes a psychotic episode. Thus, at one end of the
spectrum of adverse reactions, we might find various vague and superficial sequelae, such
as nervousness after drinking coffee, which are easily dispelled. It is possible to place any
effect on the Procrustian bed of value judgments; hysterical laughter, for instance: "I
laughed for hours at 'Please pass the potato chips.'" Certainly laughing for hours at such a
straightforward request is not normal. Yet the respondent reported the event in positive
terms; a clinician might see itent, will influence what he feels, sees, and does.
Marijuana smokers often report paranoia as one of the effects of the drug on their psychic
state while high. Many, however, qualify this with the reservation that it is only because
of the legal climate, because of the drug's illegality, their fears of being arrested, the fact
that a friend may have been arrested, that this mood is engendered. In other words, part of
the setting of all users is the fact that the outside world punishes the act, and this
realization is often woven into the experience itself, in the form of fear. Yet to say that this
effect is a direct product of the drug, and not the legal setting in which the user consumes
the drug, is to distort the reality of the situation. As Kenneth Keniston said in a drug
symposium, given February 28, 1969 at the "New Worlds" Drug Symposium, at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, "The only thing that we know for sure about
(26 of 34)4/15/2004 1:07:27 AM
The Marijuana Smokers - Chapter 7
marijuana is that you can get arrested." The smoker knows this, and sometimes responds,
while high, accordingly. Those who charge the drug with generating panic states are often
the very same ones who themselves produce them. Allen Ginsberg attributes his
sometimes-feeling of paranoia to the prevailing legal climate:
I myself experience... paranoia when I smoke marijuana and for that reason
smoke it in America more rarely than I did in countries where it is legal. I
noticed a profound difference of effect. The anxiety was directly traceable
to fear of being apprehended and treated as a deviant criminal and put
through the hassle of social disapproval, ignominious Kafkian tremblings in
vast court buildings coming to be judged, the helplessness of being
overwhelmed by force or
shops shops
cannabis threat of deadly force and put in brick and iron
cell.
From my own experience and the experience of others I have concluded
that most of the horrific effects and disorders described as characteristic of
marijuana "intoxication" by the US Federal Treasury Department's Bureau
of Narcotics are, quite the reverse, precisely traceable back to the effects on
consciousness not of the narcotic but of the law and threatening
nodes buds marijuana activities of
the US Federal Treasury Department... Bureau of Narcotics itself.25
Another difficulty with the contention that marijuana is psychotomimetic is that it is
never clearly defined what constitutes a psychotic episode. Thus, at one end of the
spectrum of adverse reactions, we might find various vague and superficial sequelae, such
as nervousness after drinking coffee, which are easily dispelled. It is possible to place any
effect on the Procrustian bed of value judgments; hysterical laughter, for instance: "I
laughed for hours at 'Please pass the potato chips.'" Certainly laughing for hours at such a
straightforward request is not normal. Yet the respondent reported the event in positive
terms; a clinician might see it Blueberry Marijuana Seeds
Hawaii X Maui Waui edinburgh
weed
weed y studies of marijuana have been given
what are, judging by the effects reported in Chapter 11, overdoses, i.e., dosage levels they would not
choose for themselves because of the probability of unpleasant symptoms and loss of control.
Physical setting has usually been a hospital or laboratory, typically ugly and impersonal. The social
sciences generally, in their pursuit of "objectivity," have adopted cold and impersonal settings in order to
gain it. In reality this gains a particular set of limiting conditions, not objectivity. Scientists are just
beginning to become aware of how physical settings affect people (Sommer, 1969).
Social setting often paralleled the physical setting. Experimental personnel tended to be impersonal,
evasive in answering questions, and manipulative of the subject. There were seldom the sort of people
the experienced user would have chosen for companions. They were often typical of our culture in that
they considered drug use "bad" or "sick."
Learned drug skills were typically non-existent in that naive subjects were almost universally used
because their reactions were supposedly "uncontaminated." Thus much of subjects' reactions in such
experiments represented coping activities of naive people under stress in an unknown situation. The
effects of coping may have been much more prominent than many drug effects and may have been
mistaken for them. Studying adaptation to drugs is fine and necessary if the experimenter realizes that
that is what he is studying, a realization rare in the literature.
Implicit demands, difficult as they are for a reader of the literature to judge, often seem to have been
negative in that "sick" or "maladaptive" reactions were expected. Aside from the unknown degree to
which such demands might have been communicated by the verbal interaction of the experimenter with
his subjects, such practices as keeping psychiatric attendants nearby, locking the subject in a room and
keeping him under surveillance, and having subjects sign legal release forms prior to the experiment,
seem sufficient to communicate strong expectations of adverse effects to subjects.
Orne and Scheibe (1964) carried out a classical study demonstrating that demand characteristics of
(10 of 16)4/15/2004 7:02:54 AM
On Being Stoned - Chapter 2
sensory deprivation experiments might be responsible for many of the effects supposedly resulting from
the "drastic" treatment of depriving a person of sensory stimulation for prolonged periods. Because the
procedure in so many sensory deprivation experiments parallels that in laboratory studies of marijuana
and other psychedelic drugs, it is worth reporting this study in some detail.
Two groups of normal male college students, naive as to what sensory deprivation was about, took
part in the experiment. The experimental group reported individually to the hospital where the
experiment was to be held and were greeted by an experimenter dressed as a physician. The
sexing
sexing Blueberry Marijuana Seeds marijuana marijuana marijuana
buying in