H o w w i c k e d , h o w w o n d e r f u l ?
A Salon Face-Off
We start the argument — you join in (in Table Talk)
In defense of marijuana
By GARY KAMIYA
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I make this more or less banal declaration because, frankly, I feel like somebody has to — somebody has to step forward and defend the choices they've made in their lives, speak honestly about what they know, even about something as publicly demonized as pot. To remain silent in the face of the latest hysteria about The Great Marijuana Menace would be hypocritical and cowardly. Yet only a cowed and sanctimonious silence from the media has greeted the absurd recent fulminations of our putative leaders. The first salvo was fired by Bob Dole, in a predictable attempt to revive his moribund campaign by blaming the rise in teenage "drug use" (more on that misleading phrase later) on that noted reefer madness promoter, Bill Clinton. Clinton, who regards himself as vulnerable on "values" and — thanks to his fabled Oxford non-inhalation — doubly vulnerable on weed, responded like the nice Dick Morris-trained Pavlov dog that he is: he out-Doled Dole, proposing that high school students be forced to pass a drug test before getting a driver's license. First of all, let's get some facts straight. The ballyhooed rise in teenage "drug use" is a rise in marijuana use — nothing else. Cocaine use is flat; heroin use is up substantially, but the numbers are minuscule by comparison to marijuana. Why, then, don't we hear about a "disturbing rise in marijuana use"? Because we're in the land of Orwell here. The word "drugs" is used because it's scary. Forget the fact that marijuana has about as much in common with heroin, cocaine, or speed as a Sudafed does with a general anaesthetic — linguistic terror tactics demand that we lump them all together (excepting of course alcohol, that most innocuous and patriotic of substances). The inconvenient fact is that recreational marijuana use, like recreational drinking, is not destructive at all — which is why marijuana should be treated like alcohol (i.e. legalized, taxed heavily and sold only to adults). They are both fine, life-enhancing things, and few of those who choose them would willingly give it up. Of course, there are kids who abuse marijuana, just as there are kids who abuse alcohol and tobacco. There were kids who smoked too much dope when I was in high school: there will always be kids (and adults) who smoke too much dope, just as there will always be kids (and adults) who drink too much. No one condones that, except some Rastafarian types or terminal Deadheads. But that doesn't mean we have a national crisis. We don't. There is no reason to assume that kids today won't deal with grass the same way the kids in my generation did: a few will have problems, most won't. Some will stop smoking somewhere along the way, and some — like all those eminently respectable journalists, lawyers, waiters, doctors, carpenters, writers, salesmen, engineers, artists, nurses, architects, teachers and taxi drivers that I know — will continue to indulge in the odd joint from time to time. They will do so for the same reason that people all over the world have always taken mind-altering substances, whether yage, peyote, hashish, Chardonnay or Lucky Strikes: because they enjoy them, because they turn over the soil in their minds, because they take them out of where they are and make things, however modestly, new. Yes, a few will become "addicted" (a slightly portentous and misleading word to use for the sloppy habit of desiring to be high more than is good for you); yes, a few will derail somehow. But that is true of every mind-altering substance — and especially true of alcohol. It's hard to deny that weed is considerably less harmful to mind, body and spirit than booze — and I say that as somebody who likes to drink. Its "evil" consists exclusively in the aura of vice that hangs about it because it is illegal. The logical consequence of this is inescapable: Unless one is prepared to call for a new Prohibition, moral pronouncements about the evils of marijuana are simply hypocritical. Some will say, "That may be true, but two wrongs don't make a right." But is the pleasantly relaxed, slightly euphoric sense that one has when drinking a good Cabernet with friends really "wrong"? I don't think so, any more than I think the slightly nervous, friendly, intensely associative, pleasantly dramatic state of mind that I get when I smoke dope with friends is "wrong." The reductio ad absurdum proceeds further: for getting high to be "wrong," all altered states of consciousness must be wrong. You got tears in your eyes listening to Ravel's "Tombeau de Couperin" — you're outta here! Unless, that is, there is something uniquely destructive and pathological about the psychological state created by smoking weed. That's the official story, of course. "It's Lotus-Eater land!" shriek know-nothings. "You're all blissed out and your mind is vacant!" It is tedious to even respond to such crude formulations, but speaking for myself, smoking dope does not make me blissed out (unless I get really lucky) and if it does anything to my usually-vacant mind it overcrowds it. I find that wealth of teeming thoughts healthy, like travel or crop rotation. In fact, I gauge my mental health by my capacity to get high, as opposed to sodden: I find getting stoned nobler and more intimate, more challenging, than getting sloshed. "All well and good," someone may say. "But do you really want to send a message to kids that taking drugs is OK?" No — I don't want to "send a message" at all. Our society is filled with too many phony "messages" aimed at producing some desired result. A cacophony of ends-oriented propaganda has drowned out the truth. And the whole technique backfires, anyway: kids have been hearing all this "marijuana is the devil's lure" rhetoric for decades, and they know it's a crock. The result is generalized cynicism and an increasing suspicion that anything authorities say is just bogus rhetoric. I don't presume to know the right way for everyone to live their lives, but the reality of my own cannot be reduced to "Just say no." That isn't my truth, and I cannot in good conscience pretend it is. I have an infant daughter. When she grows up and goes to high school, if the day ever comes when I smell reefer on her breath, I'm not going to stab my whole life in the back, not going to turn into some feeble old apostate who doesn't even remember what it once meant to be young and full of wonder and wanting to try it all, even those things that might lead down unexpected paths. I took one of those paths, and I like who I am. If she wants to open that gate, I will watch. With love, with infinite tenderness, wanting only the best for her, I will watch as she does what she has to, what she wants.
Blowing smoke on the defense By ANDREW ROSS GARY KAMIYA presents a rather skillful opening statement in defense of — um, well, I was going to say in defense of marijuana — but I'm not sure quite what it is that Gary is defending. That's what makes it skillful. Who could argue with such seeming Aristotlean moderation? The always reasonable Mr. Kamiya is clearly no raging stoner who whiles away hours in a perpetual haze, with Metallica blasting through his headset. He's no "Deadhead" or "Rastafarian," he hastens to remind us, sliding in that convenient distinction between "recreational use" and "abuse." (Who determines that difference, and how, he does not explain.) For him, the occasional reefer is rather like the occasional glass of port, something that goes, sublimely, with a good meal, good friends and good conversation. It's a middle class television commercial shot through a gauzy lens. "Tonight is the night, tonight is kind of special. Let it be Lowenbrau." So, really what we have here is "in defense of Gary Kamiya smoking marijuana." Fine, Gary, you have our permission. But as one looks more closely at the grandiosity of his defense one begins to have doubts about the broader applicability of his wisdom. Grandiosity? Try this: "To remain silent in the face of the latest hysteria about The Great Marijuana Menace would be hypocritical and cowardly." What "hysteria"? The pot propagandists always like to hurl this "reefer madness" accusation at anyone who has doubts about the certainty of their cause. In fact, the political football both Dole and Clinton are trying to kick around really isn't carrying very far. If it was the presidential race might be a little closer by now. One concrete measure of such "hysteria" surely would be California's Proposition 215, which calls for the virtually indiscriminate distribution of marijuana to anyone who says he or she needs if for medical reasons. According to the polls, it will pass by a wide margin. Having erected one of his straw men, Gary then puts a match to it. The concern about increased teen use of "drugs," he asserts, is merely code for marijuana. He then contradicts himself by acknowledging that teen heroin use is up also! Cocaine is "flat." What about speed, LSD, even glue? The fact is, teen drug use, according to the surveys, is as high as it's been in 20 years. Gary, one question: is this good, or not good? More specifically, if you like, is the rise and rise in marijuana use amongst teens good, or not good? "There is no reason to assume that kids today won't deal with grass the same way the kids in my generation did: a few will have problems, most won't," Gary hastens to assure us. How does he know that? Would he say that kids in the ghetto are dealing with cocaine in the same way that kids in our generation (and class) did? Talk to drug counselors, parents and teachers. I think they'll tell you that there are a great many kids who are not dealing with marijuana as benevolently as you think. Firstly, the dope out there is stronger, for the most part, that when Gary (and I) dallied in the counter-culture. Second, a lot more kids are spending a lot more time smoking it. And I suspect — Gary will tell me if I'm wrong — that many of them started at a much younger age than he did. Again, is this good, or not good? It is fine for Gary to "gauge my mental health by my capacity to get high." But what if others do it to psychologically self-medicate, or just simply to get high rather doing their homework? Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? And how will you determine which of those reasons has motivated your daughter "should the day ever come when I smell reefer on her breath"? How much reefer are you prepared to smell on her breath? And how often? Suppose she doesn't wait until high school? Suppose she doesn't like your rules-to-smoke-marijuana-by? Will you really watch "with infinite tenderness, wanting only the best for her?" The face-off continues in Table Talk. Join in! |
