Analysis of the Findings: Public Policy and the Drug Abuse Problem

THE FINDINGS

Observations and interviews during and following the Operation Intercept period have confirmed the conclusion that there was, in fact, a severe marihuana shortage in New York City during the summer and early fall of 1969. Although a general shortage was evident, the extent of the shortage for various groups and individuals was not found to be constant.

Those who experienced "no shortage" and "no higher prices" were atypical of the vast majority of marihuana users. These persons were unaffected for one of the following reasons:

1. A few had access to an adequate supply of domestically grown marihuana. Although this situation was quite rare in the New York City area, evidence suggests that it was more common in other sections of the country.

2. Prior to the shortage, some marihuana users had accumulated a supply large enough to last through the summer and early fall of 1969, so that purchases during this period were unnecessary. Those who were in this situation sold marihuana on a full-time or part-time basis; although personally unaffected, selling activities were adapted, in various ways, to the marihuana shortage.

3. Many sporadic users of marihuana were unaffected since, due to infrequent use prior to the shortage, a layoff of several months went unnoticed.In contrast, many users of marihuana were completely unable to obtain the drug for a period of at least one month during this period. This situation was particularly common among two distinct types of marihuana users:

1. Middle- and upper-middle-class businessmen, professionals, and others in "respectable" occupational and community positions, whose only tie to a drug subculture consisted of one or two personal contacts from whom they previously purchased marihuana.

2. Young black and Puerto Rican users of marihuana, who were students, unemployed or marginally employed, and who resided in low-income ghetto areas.

Although some users were able to maintain their regular intake and supply simply by paying higher prices for the drug, the majority of marihuana users found it less available as well as more expensive. Those who found it to be readily available, although more expensive, identified strongly with a drug subculture and had sold marihuana at some time. They most closely resembled those who were unaffected due to an adequate supply for personal use. However, even among those with selling experience and a strong counterculture identification, most experienced decreasing availability and increasing prices during this period. This two-sided dilemma was the most common situation among marihuana users in the New York City area. Generally, it was found that those who stressed the difficulty of obtaining marihuana were older, had greater financial resources, and were less involved in the drug scene than those who emphasized high prices.

Thus, although there were probably as many different specific experiences as there are drug-using cliques in New York City, some useful generalizations emerge from the data. These differential experiences suggest the many types of relations that exist between the marihuana market and various types of marihuana users, as well as underlining the highly differentiated and uncontrolled nature of the marihuana market.

It was seen that the immediate and intermediate objectives of the Operation Intercept policy were realized. Importation of marihuana was substantially curtailed, its price increased, and its availability was reduced. However, the reduction and hopefully the elimination of illegal drug use in the United States, particularly among the young, was the ultimate objective of this public policy. Assuming that the policy makers' stated concern about the problem did in fact reflect their most basic motivations, and that their diagnoses and recommendations were informed and realistic, we would have expected to observe a general decrease in drug use during this period. Ideally, the policy aimed at complete abstention by a significant proportion of drug users. Thus, both abstention and decreased use can be characterized as intended consequences of the Operation Intercept policy.

The findings of this study indicate that abstaining from all drug use was a highly atypical reaction to the marihuana shortage. In fact, those who reported no drug use at all for at least one month during this period were such infrequent users of marihuana and so uninvolved in a drug use subculture, that "abstain" would be an inappropriate term. Just as these sporadic users experienced "no shortage," they also experienced no real change in drug use behavior.

Although less marihuana use was reported by many drug users and observers of the drug scene, most of these went on to note an increased availability and use of drugs other than marihuana. Those who did report a personal decline in total drug consumption were distinguished by certain identifiable characteristics, which can be categorized as follows:

1. Middle-class and upper-middle-class men and women, between the ages of 24 and 55, who previously used marihuana on a regular basis (four times a week), but who had little identification with a drug subculture, a counterculture movement, or a drug-oriented way of life. Prior to the shortage, these respondents had never used any illegally obtained drug other than marihuana or hashish.

2. Very infrequent users of marihuana who might have gone several months without using it, even if the shortage had never developed. These were middle-class people, over 20 years of age, involved in white-collar employment or educational endeavors. As in the former groups, these respondents had never used any illegally obtained drug other than marihuana or hashish prior to the shortage.

Therefore, the ultimate objectives of Operation Intercept were realized only among a very limited segment of drug users in the New York City area. Further, these marihuana users are distinguished by certain objective and subjective characteristics, which, taken as a whole, make them unrepresentative of the general drug-using population. These factors include serious involvements in respectable social institutions, lack of identification with a drug subculture, an average age above 20 years old, and rare involvement in multiple drug use experimentation. Many of these reportedly resorted to an increased use of alcohol.

It is evident that those who reacted as anticipated were not those for whom drug use in general or marihuana use in particular was posing a serious problem of personal adjustment. Nor were they the drug counterculture devotees who were seen as posing a threat to the nation's social order. If any of the studies, official statistics, and polls are to be believed, they are also nonrepresentative, in attitudes and behavior, of the vast majority of marihuana users.

While we can generalize about the characteristics of those who decreased or temporarily discontinued drug use during the shortage, this is not the case concerning those who reacted in an unanticipated manner. Those who manifested increased experimentation, a greater reliance on drugs other than marihuana, heavier involvement in drug distribution, and an increased or reaffirmed skepticism concerning the intentions and basic intelligence of the authorities cannot be uniformly characterized. These types of unintended reactions and adaptations were experienced by marihuana users from a wide range of residential, socioeconomic, occupational, and age groups in the New York City area. Further, such unanticipated reactions were reported among persons representing various stages of involvement in drug use subcultures. In sum, the various types of unanticipated reactions and the types of persons involved in same are as follows:

1. Many marihuana users - representing all ages, residential areas, and socioeconomic strata, and various stages of involvement in drug use subcultures - became much more involved in trying to purchase marihuana than ever before. Through this involvement, contact was often established with individuals and groups more "advanced" in drug use and drug distribution.

2. Some marihuana users, particularly younger people who were able to obtain marihuana during the shortage, became involved in its sale for the first time.

3. Among all types of marihuana users, there was a sharply accelerated interest in "home-grown" marihuana. This "do-it-yourself" movement was reflected in the publication and sales of books, articles, and pamphlets devoted to the subject.4. The use of alcohol increased for individual marihuana users from all age, residential, and socioeconomic groups. This was least true among those drug users for whom marihuana was not the primary drug used prior to the shortage.

5. The most general result of the marihuana shortage was the sharply increased availability and use of hashish. This phenomenon was reported in all neighborhoods except the low-income, black and Puerto Rican sections of New York City. It occurred among groups representing the full spectrum of age, occupational, and drug use involvements.

6. Many regular users of marihuana, particularly younger people, became involved in the sale of hashish. This was especially true for youths from middle- to upper-income families who had previously sold marihuana at some time.

7. The increased availability of hashish reflected a step-up in its illegal importation into this country. Whether more people became involved or established networks simply increased their activities is not known. It is believed that both of these factors played a role. However, it was evident that the knowledge of high profits and, consequently, the enticement to become involved in hashish smuggling was experienced by many marihuana users. This seems to have been particularly true regarding United States citizens who were vacationing overseas.

8. This period witnessed a substantial increase in the use of barbiturates, amphetamines, and psychedelic drugs in predominantly white neighborhoods throughout the New York City area. This switch was most prevalent among youthful drug users (high school and college age) who had previously experimented with one or more of these types of drugs (although many who had never done so previously also became involved) and who identified with a drug subculture or counterculture movement.

9. More people, particularly young drug users heavily involved in a drug-oriented lifestyle, became involved in the sale and distribution of barbiturates, amphetamines, and psychedelics than ever before.

10. For certain individuals, there was an introduction into the use of cocaine for the first time. Rather than a distinct ambiance or preference, this phenomenon appeared to be a part of the heavy multiple drug experimentation that was taking place in many groups at this time. Several factors, including limited availability and high cost, account for the fact that few continued cocaine use on a regular basis.

I 1. A few drug users, usually teenagers, resorted to cough medicines (prescription medicines containing codeine and terpin hydrate elixir or commercial syrups such as Robitussin A-C, which contains codeine, an antihistamine and a muscle relaxant), herbs such as catnip, nutmeg, or mace (inhaled), antihistamines (sometimes mixed with alcohol or cough syrups), over-the-counter "sleeping aids" (such as Sominex which contains scopalamine, known to cause hallucinations when used in high doses), commercial solvents, including gasoline, cleaning agents, model airplane glue, paint thinners, nail polish remover, lighter fluid (inhaled), a variety of prescription medications for special ailments (inhalants, pills, and liquids), and an assortment of other homemade concoctions, in the attempt to "get a head" when nothing else was available.

12. The increased availability of heroin was evident throughout the New York City area in many types of neighborhoods and among various types of drug users. Further, its price became competitive with the rising price of marihuana. It is not known whether the increased availability and reduced price of heroin was caused by a coincidentally large supply of heroin in the United States, a step-up in heroin importation, the fact that it was now being sold more aggressively, or simply that it was being cut more and packaged in smaller amounts. Reports suggest that all of these factors were instrumental. The fact remains that suddenly, during the marihuana shortage, there was more heroin around in more types of neighborhoods and at lower prices than most experts could recall in the last twenty years.

13. Although the increased availability of heroin was reported in many neighborhoods and by drug users in various stages of involvement in the drug scene, a significant switch to heroin use during this period was generally confined to particular localities and to specific types of drug users. This development was most widespread in the low-income ghetto areas of New York City, where heroin use was rapidly accelerated by the marihuana shortage. In these areas, this mode of adaptation was found among individuals and groups that were in various stages of involvement in the drug scene prior to the summer shortage, including some young people who had never used any drug previously. In contrast, in predominantly white, middle-class and affluent communities, the switch to heroin was primarily among younger drug users (I 6- to 20-years old) who had used a variety of drugs regularly prior to the shortage (although marihuana and hashish were usually the primary drugs) and who were heavily involved in a drug-oriented lifestyle.

14. Some drug users who were using marihuana as part of an effort to stop heroin use reverted to the use of heroin when marihuana became unavailable.

15. As more people became involved in heroin use during the summer and early fall of 1969, many of the new recruits also became involved in its sale. This was true of heroin users from all age, socioeconomic and neighborhood groups. These new entrepreneurs acquired a vested interest in the continued expansion of the market for heroin, which prompted them to seek more new recruits from younger and younger age groups in their respective schools and neighborhoods.

16. Many very young people who had acquired a desire for a "drug experience" started experimenting with illegal drugs other than marihuana, which was unavailable to them.

17. The attitudes expressed by drug rehabilitation workers, journalists, writers, drug users, and drug dealers alike generally coincided in terms of a basic distrust of the intentions and intelligence of the policy makers. While some attacked the authorities' lack of understanding of the drug problem, others accused them of using the policy as a means to attaining some unstated ulterior objective, unrelated to the "war on drugs." Unquestionably, this "communications gap" existed before Operation Intercept. But it is equally true that, for many, Operation Intercept was an important factor in the alienation, polarization, and radicalization process.

These findings indicate that a vast range of unanticipated consequences resulted from the Operation Intercept policy decision. In this regard, Merton alerts us to an analytical requirement: "Rigorously speaking, the consequences of purposive action are limited to those elements in the resulting situation which are exclusively the outcome of the action, i.e., those elements which would not have occurred had the action not taken place."1 Without access to a control group, we can have no way of knowing with any statistical certainty whether some of these developments might not have materialized anyway. Since all marihuana users in the New York City area were affected, no within-area group could be used for comparative study. And, since the enforced marihuana shortage was nationwide, we could not study another section of the country as a "control population." Even if this were possible, the problems of comparability would have been numerous. So the link between these consequences and the policy to which they have been attributed was drawn by those who were personally exposed to the "particular concrete situation"2 in which we were interested.

Many of the statements presented in Chapter 2 clearly depict a direct relationship between the policy and these developments. Further evidence of this relationship derives from the fact that at the end of the marihuana shortage the vast majority of respondents reported a return to drug use patterns quite similar to those adopted during the preshortage period. However, one significant change was evident among those marihuana users who had experimented with other drugs. Although marihuana once again assumed the role of "primary drug," other drugs used regularly during the shortage were added to the repertoire but on only an occasional basis. Another exception was represented by those youngsters who had first experimented with drugs while marihuana was unavailable and subsequently switched to marihuana after the shortage ended.

Contrary to much professional as well as popular opinion, the switch back to marihuana was even reported by many of those drug users who turned to heroin during the shortage. Obviously, the poor quality of the heroin that was being sold at that time, thus its limited physiologically addicting potential, was a major factor. However, another important factor that is generally overlooked in the literature is that many drug users, even those who may depend on a "harder drug" for a period of time, rely primarily on marihuana. Further, many multiple drug experimenters prefer marihuana to other drugs that come to be used only on specific occasions or in specific types of situations. Thus, it is believed that the "worse it is for you, the more you're going to like it and use it" hypothesis, is not generally valid.

In sum, the link between the Operation Intercept policy and the resulting situation appears to be quite clear. Further, the behaviors of drug users after the shortage ended adds greater credence to this causal formulation. Based on the statements of those who were personally involved, "the validity of hypotheses derived from content analysis and social-psychological theory"3 has been confirmed. In the next section, "Additional Evidence Concerning the Unanticipated Consequences of Operation Intercept," two types of supplementary evidence will be cited:

a. published accounts of drug use patterns in the New York City area during this period, and

b. published accounts and interviews with professionals concerned about the drug abuse problem, depicting the situation in other sections of the country.

ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE CONCERNING THE UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES OF OPERATION INTERCEPT

Although the issue has been most vehemently debated in the past decade, concern over the unanticipated consequences of antimarihuana legislation is not something new. Nearly 80 years ago, the British published the largest and one of the most impartial reports ever done on hemp, a seven-volume, three-thousand-page study entitled "Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission." Their conclusion, that the moderate use of hemp produces no injury to the character, the mind, or the body4 has recently received a good deal of exposure. However, Kaplan and Aldrich point out that a recommendation of the report, which has been all but ignored, holds that the prohibition of marihuana would lead to the increased usage of other considerably more harmful drugs.5

Lindesmith's analysis of the effects of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 also focuses on the negative consequences of such legislation:

If it is true that marihuana users were not switching to heroin in 1937, it seems probable that it was the 1937 anti-marihuana law itself that brought about the change. With the risks increased, prices and profits on the now illicit commodity went up, with the result that merchants who had earlier handled one or the other of these drugs, but not both, now began to handle both of them. The marihuana user thus found himself able to purchase heroin from merchants who had previously sold only marihuana. 6

With the advent of Operation Intercept, concern over the negative consequences of the attempt to suppress the supply of marihuana came into public view to an unprecedented degree. Much of the controversy was reminiscent of the issues raised by Lindesmith and by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission; many of the conclusions reached by writers and professionals in the drug abuse field, as well as mass media journalists, reaffirm the findings previously stated in this report.

Two distinctly diverse sources, John Kaplan, author and Professor of Law at Stanford University, and Rolling Stone, using information obtained from Andrew Kopkind, editor of Hard Times, quoted Thomas Lynch, Attorney General of California, as saying that the use of dangerous drugs increases among marihuana users in times of marihuana scarcity because marihuana and dangerous drugs have become interchangeable. Based on Lynch's statements, Kaplan concludes: "Mr. Lynch refuses to draw from this the obvious conclusion that his efforts at suppression of marijuana are, insofar as they are successful, doing his state more harm than good."7 Rolling Stone points to the inherent contradiction between Mr. Lynch's statements and the policy-enforced shortage as follows: "If this is so, it would seem almost immoral - by their standards - for the Feds to cut down on the flow of marijuana."8 Kaplan goes on to note that during the marihuana shortage in the summer of 1968, use of a "new" drug, jimsonweed (also known as locoweed), previously almost unknown in the United States, was reported on the increase in Southern California.9

The Nation also offered an ominous prediction concerning the policy's effects:

The objective, according to Mr. Kleindienst, is to deter smugglers, so that the price of marijuana will rise and an estimated 30 million young Americans will be obliged to forsake the weed for lack of funds. At least the more impecunious of them will undergo a money cure. Some, of course, may turn to heroin or other addictive dangerous drugs. If the price of heroin is also jacked up, the addicts will have to steal more to get their daily fix. . . . It is more likely, according to Southern California authorities, that African hashish, cheaper and more potent than Mexican marijuana, will take over most of the market.10

These inherent contradictions, past experiences, and dire predictions obviously carried little weight in terms of the formation of policies for 1969 and thereafter.

According to Life, although marihuana had all but disappeared from the streets, "Heroin, LSD, hashish and all varieties of uppers and downers are around in great abundance."11 Similarly, U.S. News & World Report quoted Lieutenant Norbert Currie, head of San Francisco's narcotics bureau, as saying: "But we did notice that in the first six months of this year, young people - in high schools particularly - were switching over to pills, mainly seconal." 12 And a New York agent, John J. Riley of the U.S. Customs Bureau, was reported as stating: "Hashish has gone from $300 to $500 a pound to $1,200 a pound. There has been a terrific increase in the past year in imports in hashish."13 He went on to note another development: "Recently there has been an alarming increase in intercepts of packages containing marijuana mailed from Vietnam."14

Reports of unanticipated consequences came from many sources. A New York Times Magazine article on the drug problem in an affluent Long Island community included the following observation:

And Time noted that "many authorities say that the dearth of pot is prompting users to take up harder drugs like amphetamines or even heroin."16 Newsweek summarized the "switching" phenomenon as follows:

Included in a comprehensive report to the Ford Foundation on the drug abuse problem in this country, Wald and Hutt offered the following analysis of the government's campaign to stop drugs at the border: "There is strong evidence that Operation Intercept, the attempt to impede the flow of marijuana from Mexico into the United States, has resulted in significant substitution of other drugs for marijuana." 18

At the same time, a wide range of other unintended consequences were being reported. The rapidly accelerated interest in domestic marihuana, even growing it in the home, received great coverage. The following letter from a marihuana dealer appeared in Herb Caen's column in the San Francisco Chronicle.-

And the East Village Other, writing for an audience that supports the use of marihuana, offered the following documentation of events and a prediction of future trends:

Newsweek summarized the developments on the domestic front as follows:

The shortage has created a vogue for manuals such as "Home Grown Happiness" an eighteen-page instruction booklet on marijuana cultivation that sold out several printings this summer in Cambridge, Mass. But those who have harvested their own cannabis in window boxes, in closets under infra-red lamps and even in the open fields (a 4-acre plantation was recently discovered as far north as Maine) report dismal results. "You have to smoke two or three sticks in a row to get a real buzz," says one smoker of the domestic product. In Kentland, Ind., last week, police arrested 24 would-be pot prospectors, who arrived carrying maps they hoped would lead to areas where the stuff grows wild.21

The increased interest in domestic marihuana was also uncovered by Congressman Claude Pepper, Chairman of the Select Committee on Crime, of the House of Representatives. As part of an inquiry into marihuana use in this country, Mr. Pepper heard testimony from Lieutenant Wayne F. Rowe of the Nebraska State Highway Patrol. Their discussion included the following remarks:

Rolling Stone reprinted a letter from a California dealer, which points out a new money-making opportunity, brought about by the shortage of marihuana and the simultaneous influx of heroin into New York City: "It is still possible to grab a New York flight with two 'keys' of grass (about $320 - California prices), exchange it for smack or coke in the Village or Harlem, and sell the hard stuff here for over $3,000.24

Of all of the unintended effects of the marihuana shortage, the switch to "hard" drugs caused greatest concern among those with a long-standing interest in drugs and drug abuse. Allen Ginsberg, like many of the political radicals interviewed in New York City, saw this development as part of a government-police-mafia conspiracy:

One element of the conspiracy is the escalation of the junk problem. While Operation Intercept was aimed at stopping marijuana, there was simultaneously a flood of junk in all of the big cities, especially New York. The price of junk doubled and the quality of junk decreased so much that there were hundreds of deaths from overdosing. Police pressures finally busted Owsley and others in this area so there is less and less of a marijuana/acid culture and more and more of a speed/junkie culture which I attribute in great part to the activities of the police.

The other aspect of the conspiracy is that all those junkies are giving their money to the mafia, because the mafia is supplying the junk. According to The New York Times, junk is the second largest illegal income for the mafia, the first being gambling. As it now stands addiction is a criminal problem rather than a medical one. I would guess that on a state and federal level there must be some kind of working relationship between them in order to maintain the situation as it is. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible for the mafia to import so much junk. If there is a collusion of interests I don't think enough people understand how that problem can be attacked morally. 25

Several months after the conclusion of Operation Intercept, Jay Levin, a reporter for the New York Post, conducted interviews with heroin-using teenagers in Jamaica, New York. Based on these interviews, the following remarks were published using the respondent's first initial only:

0: I think most of the kids are using skag (heroin), like here in Queens, for the same reason I did, 'cause other drugs were being stamped out. It's harder to get barbiturates and reefers, but with skag, all the dealers have it. . . . I started out with skag 'cause reefers, I couldn't get that. One night at a party a cat came up to me and said, do I want to try skag? I was curious so I snorted some. Then, you know, after a while I started skin-popping because they said it was a better high.

R: In the summer there wasn't much grass around, that's when I started

on dope. Everybody was doing everything to get high. . . . Before that, I

was using grass, hash, pills.

J: Yeah, I was on grass for a long time and all of a sudden the panic set in

and I didn't know what to do, so I started using skag. 2 6

Levin's interviews led to the following conclusion: "For a while last summer, the federal government mounted a massive crackdown on marijuana smuggling across the Mexican border. For most of the summer, pot was as hard to find in the city as snow. The marijuana panic' accelerated - some say drastically - the trend to heroin." 21 Kaplan also noted this development in New York City:

Recently, moreover, it appears that efforts to enforce criminalization of marijuana have contributed to the heroin problem in yet another way. New York City is presently engulfed in an outbreak of heroin use not matched since the epidemic of 1948-49. Though the mechanism for this has not yet been fully documented, most observers place the blame squarely upon Operation Intercept, which for several weeks made marijuana almost unobtainable in large areas of the United States. This marijuana drought took place at a time when, by coincidence, an ample

 

 

supply of heroin in New York City enabled the traders in heroin to pull off a "business coup." They diluted their usual grade of heroin, dropped its price, and offered it widely for sale in the high schools and junior high schools where it previously had been unobtainable at a price competitive with that of marijuana. As a result, heroin made substantial inroads on a population far younger - and somewhat more middle-class - than that previously involved with the drug. 2 8

Seymour Fiddle, Research Director of Exodus House, an East Harlem rehabilitation center for drug addicts, filled in some of the particulars of the switch from marihuana to heroin during this period. His comments are based on close observation of the situation in Harlem, although they are also applicable to other ghetto neighborhoods:

Thus, in 1968-69, there was increasing talk of inflation in the world of business and finance, and New York City was among the cities most affected by it. During that same period, the illegal market decreased the price of a bag of heroin in the ghetto. The bag, which had sold for as much as three to six dollars earlier, increasingly was sold for two dollars and not necessarily with radically fewer grains. . . . Two dollars is significant for another reason. It was also the price of three sticks or marijuana cigarettes. For a time heroin was truly competitive with marijuana, and the transition from marijuana to heroin was therefore made less costly. In addition, if I point out to you that at least once, during the summer of 1969, there was a panic in the marijuana market, you will realize the full irony of the situation. I have been told by some of my informants that potheads they know, missing their regular, as they refer to it, had snorted heroin, sometimes for the first time, to get a head. I do not know whether anything more serious developed in these cases, but clearly, these were risks taken by people on pot, not by "graduating" from the drug, but through a scarcity caused by the vg police who claim that there is always a good chance for such graduation.

The switch to heroin was also reported in other sections of the country. Several interviews were conducted with professionals and staff workers in the drug-abuse field, who had spent the summer of 1969 outside of the northeastern section of the United States. An interview with a staff worker at an East Harlem rehabilitation clinic was particularly instructive, as it underlined the close interrelationship between the drug market in New York City and developments in the southeastern United States. The respondent had lived in the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina until October of 1969. The

income for the mafia, the first being gambling. As it now stands addiction is a criminal problem rather than a medical one. I would guess that on a state and federal level there must be some kind of working relationship between them in order to maintain the situation as it is. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible for the matia to import so much junk. If there is a collusion of interests I don't think enough people understand how that problem can be attacked morally. 2 5

Several months after the conclusion of Operation Intercept, Jay Levin, a reporter for the New York Post, conducted interviews with heroin-using teenagers in Jamaica, New York. Based on these interviews, the following remarks were published using the respondent's first initial only:

0: I think most of the kids are using skag (heroin), like here in Queens, for the same reason I did, 'cause other drugs were being stamped out. It's harder to get barbiturates and reefers, but with skag, all the dealers have it. . . . I started out with skag 'cause reefers, I couldn't get that. One night at a party a cat came up to me and said, do I want to try skag? I was curious so I snorted some. Then, you know, after a while I started skin-popping because they said it was a better high.

R: In the summer there wasn't much grass around, that's when I started on dope. Everybody was doing everything to get high.... Before that, I was using grass, hash, pills.

J: Yeah, I was on grass for a long time and all of a sudden the panic set in and I didn't know what to do, so I started using skag. 26

Levin's interviews led to the following conclusion: "For a while last summer, the federal government mounted a massive crackdown on marijuana smuggling across the Mexican border. For most of the summer, pot was as hard to find in the city as snow. The marijuana panic accelerated - some say drastically - the trend to heroin."27 Kaplan also noted this development in New York City:

Recently, moreover, it appears that efforts to enforce criminalization of marijuana have contributed to the heroin problem in yet another way. New York City is presently engulfed in an outbreak of heroin use not matched since the epidemic of 1948-49. Though the mechanism for this has not yet been fully documented, most observers place the blame squarely upon Operation Intercept, which for several weeks made marijuana almost unobtainable in large areas of the United States. This marijuana drought took place at a time when, by coincidence, an ample supply of heroin in New York City enabled the traders in heroin to pull off a "business coup." They diluted their usual grade of heroin, dropped its price, and offered it widely for sale in the high schools and junior high schools where it previously had been unobtainable at a price competitive with that of marijuana. As a result, heroin made substantial inroads on a population far younger - and somewhat more middle-class - than that previously involved with the drug. 28

Seymour Fiddle, Research Director of Exodus House, an East Harlem rehabilitation center for drug addicts, filled in some of the particulars of the switch from marihuana to heroin during this period. His comments are based on close observation of the situation in Harlem, although they are also applicable to other ghetto neighborhoods:

Thus, in 1968-69, there was increasing talk of inflation in the world of business and finance, and New York City was among the cities most affected by it. During that same period, the illegal market decreased the price of a bag of heroin in the ghetto. The bag, which had sold for as much as three to six dollars earlier, increasingly was sold for two dollars and not necessarily with radically fewer grains. . . . Two dollars is significant for another reason. It was also the price of three sticks or marijuana cigarettes. For a time heroin was truly competitive with marijuana, and the transition from marijuana to heroin was therefore made less costly. In addition, if I point out to you that at least once, during the summer of 1969, there was a panic in the marijuana market, you will realize the full irony of the situation. I have been told by some of my informants that potheads they know, missing their regular, as they refer to it, had snorted heroin, sometimes for the first time, to get a head. I do not know whether anything more serious developed in these cases, but clearly, these were risks taken by people on pot, not by "graduating" from the drug, but through a scarcity caused by the very police who claim that there is always a good chance for such graduation. 29

The switch to heroin was also reported in other sections of the country. Several interviews were conducted with professionals and staff workers in the drug-abuse field, who had spent the summer of 1969 outside of the northeastern section of the United States. An interview with a staff worker at an East Harlem rehabilitation clinic was particularly instructive, as it underlined the close interrelationship between the drug market in New York City and developments in the southeastern United States. The respondent had lived in the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina until October of 1969. The following are excerpts from this interview, conducted in January of 1970.

Over the past year drug use has expanded a lot. And more people are using harder drugs. Last year there were mostly potheads around, and now, well everybody I know that smoked pot has used something else. There are a lot more people experimenting. . . . I'm talking about people in Chapel Hill. Mostly w4ite, middle-class, between eighteen and early thirties. Mostly nonstudents. Well, people who used to be students, some are still at the University of North Carolina. Most have dropped out and are working as waitresses or in construction, or something like that.... Using pot used to be kind of an elite thing at the University. Now just about everybody does. It's even moved into the fraternities. . . . Probably, percentage-wise, there's much more drug use in the high schools than at the college. There are a lot of heroin users in the high schools. Probably as many as there are in the whole Chapel Hill area, including the non-students. . . . Heroin first came around in the summer. A lot of people from New York came down. Previously, you heard of people using it but really came into little contact with it. There were a lot of people in the black section of Durham, next to Chapel Hill, that had used heroin, but now a lot of the white kids around use it. It was really not noticeable till last summer. . . . Hashish was much more accessible than marihuana during the year. It fluctuated. The market down there, it depends. Like somebody would come up to New York or Washington and cop, say, a kilo, and when it runs out they don't always replenish their supply. So it kind of varies. Different people sell for a while and then it'll move on to somebody else. 'Then there are a few people who sell all the time.... Last summer marihuana was almost impossible to get. You could get some hashish. Marihuana went up, if you could get it, to at least $30 an ounce, sometimes more, and hashish went up 'cause it was the only thing you could get a hold of as far as smoke goes. It was about $15 a gram. There were quite a few amphetamines but they had kind of always been around only more people started using them. There were a lot of speed freaks around that hadn't been there previously. The amphetamines were there before, but they started using in the summer. Still, downs were never a big thing. Then heroin came on the scene and people started, you know got chippies, last summer. Several of these people have got pretty good habits now. . . . I really hadn't noticed it before the summer. It was really evident when I went home Christmas and, even in my home town, which is not Chapel Hill but just kind of a mill town, a lot of my friends were strung out. It was really a shock at Christmas 'cause it had grown so much since the summer.

It all started in the summer though and then spread. The people who were dealing Marihuana mainly went to dealing acid and speed or amphetamines. The heroin pushers were kind of new people on the scene. ... Mostly they came from New York. Like one guy down there. He comes up here to detoxify at a hospital when his habit gets too big and then gets a whole mess of stuff and goes back down and sells it. He does this periodically. Also, there was much more travel in the black section of Durham where mostly it was coming in through New York, so they start dealing more with the black people.... Some of the college people used it for the first time. Also last summer there were a lot of high school kids that started using it. I think it was mostly the college drop-out people who were selling it to the high school students. It's not a risk to the high school kids. Like the college kids are trying to get their education or whatever so not too many of them will want to use it. But the high school kids, there's more of a peer influence, so a lot more of them used it. . . . They were selling $8 bags of heroin. It's still $8 bags, which is comparable to a $2 bag up here in New York.... Also a lot of people started growing their own in the summer. It's never as good as stuff that came in but it would get you by until some did come in. But there were quite a few people, especially up in the mountains, who would go out and grow it. Nobody would even pay any attention to it. But it was pretty weak stuff.... There were a lot more people dealing drugs and there seemed to be a lot more money in it. Because everybody wanted to get high. They really didn't care how. They preferred to stick with pot but it wasn't around so they would use something else. There were more people dealing amphetamines and LSD and more people willing to try. Before, they were pretty uptight about using acid because of all the mass media stuff that came down about it, but then, you know like you gotta get high, so you go ahead.

In the winter of 1969, Robert Levengood, M.D., directed a research project aimed at obtaining the drug use histories of heroin using youths from Grosse Pointe, an affluent suburb of Detroit, Michigan. The project advisor was Paul Lowinger, M.D., of the Department of Psychiatry, Wayne State University. Of a known heroin-using population of 300 in Grosse Pointe, between 15 and 19 years old, 60 young heroin users were interviewed. No questions in the interview mentioned the marihuana shortage of the past summer or the Operation Intercept policy. Of the 60 youths interviewed, 18 spontaneously referred to the marihuana short age as a factor directly related to their own initial use of heroin. And of the 60 youths interviewed from this white, upper-middle to upper-class community, many began heroin use during the summer and fall of 1969, a period witnessing a severe marihuana shortage in the Grosse Pointe area. Findings, excerpted from these interviews, are presented in Appendix III.

Therefore, the association between Operation Intercept, the marihuana shortage, and a host of unanticipated consequences, most of which were directly and significantly contrary to the policy's ultimate goals, is well-substantiated by all available evidence. In the next section, through an analysis of the policy and the problematic situation it was designed to counteract, we will attempt to explain the prevalence of these unanticipated consequences.

AN EXAMINATION OF CONTINGENT CONDITIONS

All available evidence points to the conclusion that Operation Intercept and the resultant marihuana shortage in the United States acted as a direct, precipitating cause of the aforementioned unanticipated developments. Although this direct relationship is apparent, Operation Intercept was neither a "necessary condition"30 nor a "sufficient condition"31 of these subsequent developments. Logically, it is quite possible that some of these occurrences may have materialized, or may materialize in the future, without a marihuana shortage. It is also possible that a similar policy, enacted at some future time, would bring different results. However, since "a hypothesis of causal relationship asserts that a particular characteristic or occurrence (x) is one of the factors that determine another characteristic or occurrence (y)"32 the hypothesized causal relationship is not negated by our inability to isolate a single determining factor.

Modern science recognizes that "the scientist rarely if ever expects to find a single factor or condition that is both necessary and sufficient to bring about an event."33 The emphasis "is rather on a multiplicity of 'determining conditions,' which together make the occurrence of a given event probable."34 This approach focuses on "contributory conditions," those that "increase the likelihood that a given phenomenon will occur,"35 because each factor "is only one of a number of factors that together determine the occurrence of the phenomenon."36 Thus, events that might never have occurred (i.e., altered drug use patterns, etc.) without the presence of a particular contributory condition (i.e., Operation Intercept) might also never have occurred if this condition were present while other relevant factors or conditions were simultaneously absent. Such other relevant factors have been called "contingent conditions," those 4 1 conditions under which a given variable is a contributory cause of a given phenomenon."37

Although a study may focus on one particular contributory condition, which is seen to be the "key factor" or "precipitating condition" of a subsequent event, causal inferences require a comprehensive examination of the contingent conditions within which the hypothesized relationship between factors and sequence of events materializes. Applying this perspective to public policy issues and political events, Lasswell and Kaplan speak of the "principle of interdetermination" and "multiple causation,"38 while Bauer uses the term "envelope of events and issues" to refer to "those events and issues that must be considered as the context within which to analyze a given policy problem."39 Similarly, Suchman states that "the effect of any single factor will depend upon other circumstances also . being present and will itself reflect a host of antecedent events."40

Further, the "principle of interdetermination" dictates that we examine the multiplicity of effects, as well as multiple causes, and the processes by which causes and effects interact dialectically,41 since, according to Merton, the effects of public policy decisions "result from the interplay of the action and the objective situation. 41 In other words, as stated by Schur, "the relation between policy and problem is reciprocal" 42 and the policy is only one aspect of the total situation leading to some resultant condition. Thus, as stated in Chapter I if we are to understand the Operation Intercept policy and the reasons behind the multiplicity of unanticipated consequences stemming from this policy effort, we must gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexities inherent in the problem situation it was designed to alleviate. Since the Operation Intercept policy must be viewed as a contributory rather than a necessary or sufficient cause of these unanticipated consequences, we must attempt to define those other relevant factors or contingent conditions, those events, issues, social and cultural realities, in terms of which Operation Intercept was a significant determiner of subsequent developments.

Traditional Controls in a Decade of Change

Traditionally, official policy has relied upon both formal and informal controls against the use of marihuana. According to Becker:

A number of potent forces operate to control the use of marijuana in this country. . . . The major kinds of controls to be considered are: a) control through limiting of supply and access to the drug: b) control through the necessity of keeping nonusers from discovering that one is a user; c) control through definition of the act as immoral.44

Becker points out the ways in which these forces operate, thus limiting the use of marihuana, in conventional groups:

Marijuana use is limited, in the first instance, by laws making possession or sale of the drug punishable by severe penalties. This confines its distribution to illicit sources not easily available to the ordinary person. In order for a person to begin marijuana use, he must begin participation in some group through which these sources of supply become available to him, ordinarily a group organized around values and activities opposing those of the larger conventional society. . . . In this sense, the social mechanisms, which operate to limit availability of the drug, limit its use. ... Marijuana use is limited also to the extent that individuals actually find it inexpedient or believe that they will find it so. This inexpediency, real or presumed, arises from the fact or belief that if nonusers discover that one uses the drug, sanctions of some important kind will be applied.... In short, persons limit their use of marijuana in proportion to the degree of their fear, realistic or otherwise, that nonusers who are important to them will discover they use drugs and react in some punishing way. . . . Conventional notions of morality are another means through which marijuana use is controlled. The basic moral imperatives which operate here are those which require the individual to be responsible for his own welfare, and to be able to control his own behavior rationally. . . . One must add to this, of course, the notion that the user becomes a slave to the drug, that he voluntarily surrenders himself to a habit from which there is no escape. The person who takes such a stereotype seriously is presented with an obstacle to drug use. 45

To most observers, the situation in the United States regarding the availability and use of marihuana had changed drastically in the period between Becker's observations of a decade ago and the Operation Intercept era of the summer of 1969. While ten years ago the controls cited by Becker usually confined the use of marihuana to specific subcultures or groups of "outsiders" - such as Polsky's "beats,"46 Winick's "jazz musicians,"47 and Finestone's "cats" 48- by 1969 this was no longer the case. Over this ten-year period, the functional meaning of these major control mechanisms was substantially altered. Several significant factors and social trends operated to:

1) indicate the decreasing effectiveness of these controls, 2) increase the probability of their continued ineffectiveness, 3) bring about a change in enforcement strategy, resulting in the Operation Intercept policy, and 4) define those contingent conditions that ultimately determined the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the new policy.

The most significant of these conditions were:

A. The absolute growth in the number of marihuana users in the United States, to the point where many experts believed that the trend was irreversible.

By the time Operation Intercept was put into effect, many observers and authorities in the drug abuse field had offered statements that carried the implication that marihuana use was so thoroughly dispersed in our culture that any attempt to curb this activity was doomed to failure. In April of 1968, Time quoted Commissioner Goddard's estimate that as many as 20 million Americans may have used marihuana.49 One and one-half years later, in a Life magazine article, Goddard concluded that there was now a distinct possibility, due to social and economic factors, that marihuana had become impossible to dislodge from our society.50 That same issue of Life carried a feature story entitled, "Marijuana: The Law vs. 12 Million People."51

During that same year (1969), Grinspoon, writing on the effects of marihuana in Scientific American, noted "the present burgeoning spread of its use,"52' while Time stated that "pop drugs have provoked a defiance of the law unprecedented since Prohibition."53 Leo Hollister, a psychopharmacologist, concluded that "For the first time pot is entrenched in our society, with untold millions using the drug. We have passed the point of no return."54

The Select Committee on Crime referred to marihuana as "a major landmark of the sixties,"55 and Carey noted the changed situation as follows: "What was formerly a small and isolated phenomenon among some bohemian groups is now taking on mass proportions."56 By 1970, Louria concluded that the use of illegal drugs "is the norm rather than an aberration,"57 and Goode stated: "Whether we like it or not, potsmoking is here to stay."58

B. The prevalence of marihuana use among the middle and upper classes, including folk heroes, children from notable families, and America's future leaders.

In the period between Becker's analysis and the Operation Intercept era, the strict association between marihuana use and "deviant" subcultural groups, as well as ethnic minorities, became increasingly blurred. The use of marihuana became recognized as an activity that crossed economic, ethnic, age, and geographic boundaries.

This phenomenon was given greatest attention as it developed among student populations, although it was also noted throughout other middle- and upper-class populations in our society. This multidimensional concern was reflected in a series on drug abuse by The New York Times. One article was entitled, "The Drug Scene: A Growing Number of America's Elite Are Quietly Turning On,"59 while another was headlined, "The Drug Scene: Many Students Now Regard Marijuana as a Part of Growing Up."60 The latter article included the following: "In the late nineteen-sixties, a nationwide survey by The New York Times has found drugs, particularly marijuana, have become for many students a part of growing up, perhaps as common as the hip flasks of Prohibition."61

By the late Sixties, studies focusing on student drug use showed that users of marihuana were not necessarily identifiable as members of a "fringe" population, either numerically or socially. For instance, one study of 200 colleges found that 47 percent of those interviewed had used it,62 while a survey of one medical school found that 70 percent of the student body were current users of marihuana.63 Kenneth Keniston's observation that "it seems that most students who use drugs are drawn from an academic and social elite"64 was confirmed by available empirical data. The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse found that:

The incidence of use seems to vary according to educational attainment. Among all adults not now in school, 5% of those with an eighth grade education or less have used the drug, contrasted with 11% of those who completed some high school, 14% of those who graduated from high school, 25% of those who completed some college and 21% of those who graduated from college. 65

Further, based on a review of studies concerned with drug use in student populations, the National Commission concluded "that the majority of young people who have used marihuana received average or above-average grades in school."66

The mass media also heightened public awareness concerning the growth in marihuana use on college campuses and the seemingly unspectacular characteristics of those who were using the drug. These themes were given wide exposure, as in a Time article entitled, "Pot Problem: College Students Use of Marijuana"; a Newsweek article entitled, "Fiedler Affair: Buffalo University Group Aims to Legalize Marijuana"; and a Life article entitled, "Marijuana: Millions of Turned-on Users."67 The logical implications of this development, for future investigations, were summarized by Kaplan:

As the number of students who use marijuana approaches the total population of the student community, it becomes harder and harder to make statements differentiating those who had used marijuana from the norm. Indeed, when marijuana experience hovers around seventy percent of a studied population, it becomes much more meaningful, and more significant statistically, to make generalizations about the minority who have not used the drug than about the majority who have. 68

In fact, the use of marihuana had become so closely associated with college life in the minds of adolescents that Mauss hypothesized marihuana use to be an element in "anticipatory socialization toward college." His study, conducted in 1969, found that "high school students rating high on the Scale of Anticipatory Socialization Toward College were about twice as likely to have used marijuana as those not rating high."69 Similarly, speaking of non-college as well as college-oriented populations, Farnsworth described drug use as a "coming-of-age-rite" in adolescent groups,70 a term usually associated with normal developmental sequences within a culture rather than with regressive or deviant adaptations.

The relatively high status of youthful drug users led Carey to conclude that the authorities and decision makers would not resort to repressive measures, since "the movement seems to be composed of their children or friends of their children."71 Although this prediction may have been premature, his perception of the movement was literally as well as figuratively validated when, four months after Operation Intercept, The New York Times and Newsweek featured articles on a deluge of drug-related arrests of respected individuals, including children of powerful political and business leaders.72 The list included a group of space scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (a Space Agency facility run by Cal Tech), the son of a well-known New York banker, the son of the city manager of Hartford, Connecticut, the son of the recently elected New Jersey Governor, and the son of a New York gubernatorial contender - all arrested within one week of each other. These disclosures followed many other drug-related news stories implicating well-known personalities as diverse as world-celebrated ballet dancers, the children of several senators and presidential aspirants, a long list of rock 'n roll notables, and the daughter of the Vice President of the United States in marihuana-related activities.

Although students and the rich and famous received greatest attention, observers of the drug scene were not unaware of the spread of marihuana use among otherwise law-abiding middle- and upper-class segments of our society. In this regard, Time noted that "respectable adult citizens are also using 'sticks' or 'joints' of grass."73 A survey conducted by The New York Times found that "more and more on-the-way-up and already successful adults were using marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs. . . . Among adult drug takers, marijuana was found to be the great leveler, used by the very poor, the middle class and the wealthy."74 In a notably unsensational manner, Life observed that "at many parties casual marijuana smoking simply replaces social drinking." 75

During the same month that the government was making its greatest effort to rally support for the Operation Intercept policy (October 1969), an article appeared in New York Magazine entitled, "How the Middle Class Turns On." In it, Mayer underlined the proliferating use of marihuana among New York City's white collar, civil service, and professional establishment. The following statement by a former New York Civil Court attorney was included:

"It's not just the kids - people in every business, every profession, are turning on," remarked a lawyer in his 30's who had worked at the Civil Court ' "There are 50 judges' secretaries in that court - 10 of them smoked. A few judges did, too. I know at least 15 policemen who smoke, and I don't know that many policemen. Not long ago I went to some official government reception for an ambassador, and I smelled grass there. I couldn't believe it. You never know, though, the world is full of closet-heads." 76

Similar observations led Geller and Boas to conclude that marihuana use has "progressed from an activity associated mainly with the criminal fringe to the point where it has become a middle-class phenomenon. . . . The smoker today comes from all classes of society and one particular group can no longer be tagged as the chief user and purveyor of marijuana."77 They go on to note that, unlike the other illegal drugs, marihuana use had won -support by a large membership of the respectable middle class.78 These developments led David Solomon to state:

The important point is that in contemporary America the employment of marihuana has ceased to be a subcultural affair limited to the underprivileged and the undereducated. It has become a custom that is rapidly expanding through the byways of the middle and upper classes. 79

Thus, the period between Becker's observations and the Operation Intercept policy witnessed this "permanent shift in American social habits,"80 a shift that was recognized in all segments of society, and one that was widely considered to be beyond reversal.

C. The "stepping-stone " theory is re-examined and new multiple drug use patterns and progressions are recognized.

Until the late 1940's, when the use of heroin reached new levels of popularity in the United States, the argument that marihuana serves as a "stepping-stone" to heroin addiction was given limited attention. 81 Proponents of marihuana criminalization concentrated their arguments on those social and personal evils that allegedly resulted directly from the use of marihuana itself.82 After 1949, and until the mid-Sixties, the "stepping-stone" theory became the most effective and most widely stated argument against the use of marihuana.

Due to an outpouring of sophisticated studies on the drug abuse problem published during the Sixties, the "stepping-stone" assertion that the use of marihuana inevitably leads to heroin addiction gradually lost acceptance. Although several prestigious professional bodies continued to assert a strong causal relationship between the two drugs - for instance, spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the American Medical Association 83 - by 1969 support for this contention was far from universal.

Although the use of marihuana was still perceived by many as a predisposing factor in the etiology of heroin addiction, the relationship between the two drugs was no longer seen, or phrased, in terms of pharmacology.84 The following statement by the Special Presidential Task Force reflects this shift:

The progression is, however, probably not a consequence of the pharmacological properties of the marihuana, but rather is due to sociological and psychological factors present in a vulnerable minority of users. 85

The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice also stressed psychological and sociological variables, and concluded that:

The most reasonable hypothesis here is that some people who are predisposed to marihuana are also predisposed to heroin use. It may also be the case that through the use of marihuana a person forms the personal associations that later expose him to heroin. 86

The association between marihuana and heroin came to be stated in specific rather than general terms, and often with an implication of tentativeness. Thus, based on a study of former heroin addicts from Puerto Rico, DeFleur, Ball, and Snarr concluded that marihuana "may have served as either a facilitating or even a predisposing condition leading toward more serious narcotics usage for certain types of individuals who, because of personal or social characteristics, had high probabilities of addiction."87 Based on their own work at the National Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, and on empirical data drawn from other relevant studies, Ball, Chambers, and Ball summarized the reasons why the incipient addict is "predisposed" to opiate addiction by his use of marihuana:

Marihuana is taken for its euphoric effects - it produces a "high"; both marihuana and heroin are only available from underworld sources of supply; both are initially taken within a peer-group recreational setting; both are illegal; the neighborhood friends with whom marihuana use begins are often the same friends who initiate the incipient addict to the use of opiates. A principal effect, then, is one of differential association becoming part of a drug-taking group. 88

Although marihuana was found to be "a predisposing influence in the etiology of opiate addiction" 89 among those opiate addicts who had used marihuana at an earlier time, this predisposing factor was significantly associated with opiate addiction only "among metropolitan residents of the high addiction eastern and western states."90 Commenting upon these findings, Goode emphasized the key role played by subcultural influences and differential association when he observed that:

The main point of the Ball-Chambers-Ball article ... is that where there is an illicit drug-using subculture, marijuana and heroin will be found as mutual components, making the link more likely; where there is no illicit drug subculture, the progression is unlikely, because there is no group to sustain the transmission. It is the subculture that makes for the pot-to-heroin connection, not the drug itself.91

At the same time, a growing body of evidence substantiated the fact that not all marihuana users were "incipient addicts" (and that many opiate addicts had never used marihuana). In fact, few marihuana users were heavily involved in an "illicit drug-using subculture" that defined opiate use as an acceptable activity or were "individuals who, because of personal or social characteristics, had high probabilities of addiction." Therefore, although the BallChambers-Ball and DeFleur-Ball-Snarr observations contributed to our understanding of this predisposition among those who were "incipient addicts," these observations did not apply to the vast majority of marihuana users who did not go on to opiate addiction.

In sum, most studies on the etiology of heroin addiction published during and prior to the Sixties, focused on the specific subcultural conditions and orientations existent in those low-income ghetto areas in which "addiction-prone" metropolitan residents of high addiction states became involved in drug-taking groups.92 Through this work, the association between marihuana us e and heroin addiction was subjected to empirical elaboration and specification; when such a relationship was found to exist, it was dependent upon sociological and/or psychological factors unrelated to the majority of marihuana users.

Due to the availability of this new data and the quantitative and qualitative changes in the marihuana-using population, several scholars reformulated the "stepping-stone" theory into negative rather than positive terms. For instance, Kaplan concluded:

Probably the best summary of the data is that there appears to be no association between marijuana and heroin throughout most of our society - except among poor urban Negroes and Spanish-speaking Americans who in fact make up the predominant part of the heroin population. 93

Similarly, based on a study of 3,500 undergraduates attending 14 campuses in the New York area, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse perceived this association as the exception rather than the rule, and underlined the racial aspect of this progression: "According to recent studies, heroin usage is not common among white marihuana users. Heroin is most strongly linked to marihuana use in black and Spanish-speaking ghettos".94

The Special Presidential Task Force estimated that "only five percent of the 'habitual marihuana users' progress to heroin addictions94 and went on to observe that these tended to come from "ghetto situations" and "heavy drug-using subcultures." 96 It should be remembered that even in these "addiction-prone" groups, specifically those individuals enmeshed in "ghetto situations" and "heavy drug-using subcultures" (whites), heroin addiction was found to be the condition among only a distinct minority of marihuana users. Based on available evidence, Wald and Hutt concluded that, although "a large percentage of young black males in any large urban lower-class area have tried heroin ... the majority who have experimented with it have not become addicted."97 And, even though they found that "youthful, middle-class experimentation with heroin as part of a pattern of multi-drug use does appear to be increasing,"98 they concluded that "people who become involved with heroin in this non-ghetto context have less tendency toward heavy involvement." 99 Similarly, of the four groups most likely to be involved in heavy marihuana use - the slum dweller, the bohemian, the college student, and the high school student - Glaser, Inciardi, and Babst concluded that the transition to heroin was far more likely among the urban slum dwellers than among the other three groups.100 And, in "the colony" (Berkeley, California), where the use of marihuana and the psychedelic drugs had gai ned great acceptance, Carey found that the "middle-class users of marihuana ... do not graduate from milder drugs to heroin."101

Goode pointed out that among whites involved in heavy drug using subcultures, "even daily use of marijuana will not involve the individual in heroin use if it is absent from the group in which he interacts and finds significant others."102 In his own study of 200 persons who used marihuana regularly, it was found that "only 27 respondents, or 13% of the sample, had used heroin at least once, with extremely limited use predominating."103 Explaining this relatively high proportion of "ever-users," Goode stated: "It is a safe guess that our respondents are much more heavily involved with other drugs than is the average group of cannabis smokers, including everyone who has sampled the drug at least once up to the daily

smoker."104 In a study of 350 marihuana users, Schick, Smith, and Meyers found an even higher proportion - a full 25 percent - who had ever tried heroin. However, even in this extremely heavy drug-using Haight-Ashbury "hippie subculture" of 1968, only eight persons were found to be addicted to heroin of the 350 studied."105 In sum, data accumulated during the Sixties made it clear that there was little if any association between marihuana experimentation and heroin addiction, and that such addiction was even unlikely for those involved in most groups characterized by multiple drug use and the heavy use of marihuana. Thus, the causal inference inherent in the "stepping-stone" theory was subjected to careful elaboration and specification, to the point where its application was felt to be useful in only a small and fairly well-defined percentage of cases.

During the same period in which the marihuana-to-heroin "stepping-stone" theory was being discredited as a general explanation of heroin addiction, and consequently was no longer held to be an effective argument against the use of marihuana, new multiple drug use modalities and progression sequences were being recognized and documented. These new patterns were particularly applicable to those drug-using groups for whom the old stepping-stone theory had least relevance and credibility. Specifically, these developments were observed among the young, white, middle-class drug users of the Sixties, who rarely manifested heavy involvement in heroin use. Empirical data drawn from studies of predominantly youthful populations showed that the "dangerous drugs" - the amphetamines, the barbiturates, and the psychedelics - were gaining increasing popularity in such groups during this period. By 1969 there was general agreement that such a trend did exist.

Although it was agreed that there was nothing in the pharmacological nature of marihuana that would lead its users to other drugs, the association between the use of marihuana and the use of "dangerous drugs" was becoming evident. Blum found significant correlations between the use of marihuana and the use of legal as well as illegal drugs among students.106 Of specific interest was his finding of a high correlation between marihuana and amphetamine use (.33) and a very high correlation between marihuana and hallucinogen use (.55). The marihuana-hallucinogen correlation was higher than that found for any other pair of illegal and/or legal drugs covered in the Blum study. 107

Based on a study of 200 heavy marihuana users, Goode found that "two-thirds of the respondents (68 percent) had taken at least one drug other than marijuana or hashish at least once."108 This figure included 49 percent who had used LSD (25 percent of the LSD takers had tried it only once, and it was generally found to be a drug of infrequent use), 43 percent who had used an amphetamine, and 24 percent who had used a barbiturate or a tranquilizer at least once. Goode's data included only illicit use of amphetamines and barbiturates.109 Comparing his findings to those obtained through a survey conducted by the East Village Other, Goode concluded that 4 1 although the percentage using nearly every drug is higher for the EVO respondents, the rank order (i.e., degree of popularity) of the drug used was surprisingly similar."110

A survey of students from 200 colleges, which found that 47 percent of the students had used marihuana, also disclosed that 18 percent had tried amphetamines, 15 percent had tried barbiturates, and 11 percent had tried LSD (correlations between the use of marihuana and these other drugs were not obtained - these percentages for "dangerous drug" use include students who had never used marihuana). However, these other drugs were used frequently by only a few students.111 These figures as well as other available data led Wald and Hutt to conclude:

Within the last five years there has been a substantial increase in the use of illicit nonopiate drugs by the young, particularly among middle-class college and high school students and young military personnel. The prevalent drugs of abuse for this group are marijuana (and, to some extent, the more potent cannabis product, hashish), oral amphetamines and barbiturates, LSD, and other hallucinogens. 112

Based on their studies of youthful populations, both Goode and Carey found that the heavier the use of marihuana the greater the likelihood of selling marihuana, of taking drugs in addition to marihuana, and of heavy involvement in a drug-oriented lifestyle.113 Similarly, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse stated that "being a seller rather than only a buyer-user is influential in determining the degree of an individual's involvement with, and commitment to the use of other drugs,"114' and the Special Presidential Task Force concluded that, "It is generally true that a heavy marihuana user is more likely to be a multiple drug user."115 Schick, Smith, and Meyers' study of the Haight-Ashbury subculture and Davis' study of "heads" and "freaks" supplied data that further substantiated these progressions and correlations within heavy drug using subcultures.116

Based on their own studies and other empirical data, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse concluded that "the overwhelming majority of marihuana users do not progress to other drugs. . . . Only moderate and heavy use of marihuana is significantly associated with persistent use of other drugs."117 Although the studies cited previously might lead one to believe that this is a significant underestimation of the problem, it is felt that the Commission's observation is not inconsistent with the aforementioned data for two reasons. First, the Blum, Goode-EVO, Carey, Schick-Smith-Meyers, and Davis findings were based on members of heavy drug-using subcultures (students and "hippies"). By the Commission's standards, a far higher proportion of these persons would be considered "moderate" (11 times monthly to once daily) or "heavy" (several times daily)118 users of marihuana than would be found in the general marihuana-using population. Second, although correlations cited by several of these authors show noticeable multiple drug use experimentation, the use of a drug other than marihuana "at least once" does not constitute "persistent use" (the Commission never offers an operational definition of this term). Thus, even within these nonrepresentative groups, "persistent use" correlations would be significantly lower than "ever-used" correlations.

Even with this new information, it was obvious that not enough data was available upon which to base statistically reliable conclusions concerning multiple drug use. However, a few trends were evident by 1969. First, the marihuana user was more likely to have used other illicit drugs than the non-user. Second, the heavy marihuana user and user-seller was more likely to be a multiple drug user than the intermittent or experimental user who did not sell. Third, it was widely agreed that the illicit use of the "dangerous drugs" - the amphetamines, the barbiturates, and the psychedelics was gaining popularity among young, white, middle-class persons.

The specification and qualification of the marihuana-to-heroin stepping-stone theory, combined with a simultaneous growth in the illicit use of the "dangerous drugs," and the development of new multiple drug use patterns led to the recognition of several different (although rarely mutually exclusive) drug use modalities within the "drug scene."

At the same time, with the quantitative and qualitative changes in the drug-using population well documented, making the usefulness of social-psychologically defined "common denominator concepts" such as "alienation," "marginality," "unadjusted," and "delinquent" highly questionable, marihuana itself came to be seen as the new common denominator in the world of illicit drug use, linking even diverse drug-using subcultures. Scher called marihuana a "vade mecum" (something regularly used or carried about - a staple item),119 and Goode referred to it as a "lingua franca" (common language),120 in the drug-using world, since it was found to be used in "extremely diverse settings, in groups whose members have little or nothing to do with one another."121 Cohen stated that it was increasingly "becoming a basic drug to which other agents are added."122 His observations led him to believe that as drug use progresses, additional drugs are likely to be used in or with marihuana.123 During the latter part of the Sixties, an increasing amount of research focused on the questions: What additional drugs are added? in which groups? under what circumstances?

In many groups of whites, the regular use of marihuana came to be associated with the intermittent use of the barbiturates, the amphetamines, the psychedelic drugs, and, to a significantly lesser degree, with the use of heroin. Several studies suggested that the psychedelics were particularly appealing to well-educated, middle class drug users, seeking an inner-directed orientation through introspective exploration. Lingeman described "the majority of users of LSD" as "young, middle-class, and college-educated or else from the bohemian fringe of society."124 In contrast, the less educated drug user from a family of lower socioeconomic status was more likely to favor the amphetamines. The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse observed that "the psychedelics are more often used by the white, middle to upper middle-class, college educated population,"125 while "methamphetamine, or 'speed' use is more characteristic of those lower socioeconomic white youth who are not school or work-oriented."126 Carey pointed to age and educational differences in distinguishing the regular LSD user from the heavy user of amphetamines:

The social composition of those in the Colony who use marihuana and LSD seems to be substantially the same. This is not so when we compare them with heavy amphetamine users. The heavy amphetamine users seem to be younger, may come from a lower educational strata in the community, and seem to prefer the experience of "going outwards" rather than "inwards." The regular LSD users in the Colony seem to be somewhat older, which may account for their rejection of amphetamines.127

A similar contrast was stated by Davis, when he distinguished between "heads" and "freaks." Although both groups use marihuana, the "head" (seeking "mind expansion" in order to understand "where his head is at") finds his orientation compatible with LSD use. In contrast, the "freak" (generally less educated and from a family of lower socioeconomic status) seeks "drug kicks," and finds that the amphetamines contribute to a lifestyle (with its many forms of "extreme behavior"128) that he desires.129

Although these observations seemed to indicate certain useful social distinctions concerning drug use progressions and multiple drug use preferences within the white drug-using population, the most striking differentiation to emerge from the research of the Sixties was a racial one. While young whites who used marihuana frequently experimented with one or several of the "dangerous drugs," black and Spanish-speaking youths characterized by similar marihuana-use involvements tended to try heroin. In addition, while the most heavily drug-oriented fringe of the white population often moved on to heavy use of the amphetamines and/or the psychedelics, their black and Spanish-speaking counterparts traditionally moved on to heavy heroin involvement. The National Commission summarized this situation as follows:

For example, blacks and whites have roughly equal rates of trying and using marihuana, but their choices of other drugs and styles of drug use are quite different and distinctive, due to their frequently different sociocultural backgrounds. 130

To substantiate this conclusion, the National Commission cited a survey of 3,500 college students attending 14 campuses in the New York area. The survey found that heroin and cocaine experimentation was more than twice as prevalent among black students as among white students. In contrast, more than twice as many whites had used an amphetamine, and almost twice as many whites had tried an hallucinogenic drug.131

While overuse and illicit use of the barbiturates appeared to cross age, socioeconomic, and racial boundaries (depending on the specific drug-using group), 132 the drug preference contrast was drawn most sharply in comparisons between white, middle-class users of LSD and the black and Spanish-speaking heroin users. From the vantage point of those whites interested in exploring the "inner spaces" of psychedelic experience, "The rationales for using hallucinogenic drugs preclude any interest in heroin. Its use is considered antithetical to the value of opening up one's perceptions."133 On the other hand, the psychochernical influence of LSD appeared to be antithetical to experiences valued by the young ghetto drug user. Fiddle stated the ghetto view as follows:

If heroin exercises a kind of traditional psychochernical authority, LSD is experienced as the dangerous, rational-scientific authority. The young ghetto heroin user dibs and dabs in his drug, while the young middle class drug user experiments with LSD. Heroin, like a traditional drug, soothes and relaxes; LSD, like a laboratory product of the mind, expands consciousness. One makes the problems go away, the way a good mother buffers the child from the world; the other makes one aware of one's problems, rationally or existentially, like a latter day therapist who makes you encounter yourself and your problems. 134

Fiddle found that even the enterprising, reputable, self-confident drug dealer found LSD to be a losing item in Harlem.135

However interesting the psychopharmacological view of differential drug use preferences may be, it appears to be only one element in a very complex selection process. According to Goode, the link between marihuana and the more potent drugs "is that a specific social group defines both as acceptable and pleasurable, offering opportunities for members to use both."136 Fiddle's analysis of heroin use in the ghetto contributes to our understanding of the bases upon which these differential and relativistic judgments of "pleasurability" and "acceptability" are grounded. As Fiddle points out, specific drugs come to be considered pleasurable and to be accepted within a specific drug-using subculture to the extent that they seem to meet needs generated within the peer groups bearing the addict culture . . . whatever appears to contribute to the different peer groups in the addict culture will be acceptable; whatever does not will tend to be rejected, at least by the majority of drug addicts and users. 137

Whether or not a specific drug is "perceived" to make a contribution is based on the different roles, daily routines, and ultimate goals that characterize different drug-using peer groups; the symbolic nature or "image" of the drug as perceived by the members of a specific peer group; its history ("tradition of use") or lack of history in a particular area; as well as its psychochernical effects.138

Once a drug is defined as pleasurable and acceptable and a tradition of use is established, the "objective, negative implications and possibilities" implicit in the young drug users' conduct will be deflected by "the sheer ubiquity of deviation and risk-taking among their peers and elders"; an awareness of "the risks of losing prestige in the peer group by deviating from the group's risk-consensus"; the availability of "successful models" with which to identify; and a view of "their involvement with drugs as temporary."139 When these "risk-discounting" factors are present, the young drug user is likely to disregard any negative publicity surrounding a particular drug. In the absence of these factors, he is likely to accept the messages carried in the mass media.140

Although Fiddle's analysis was intended to explain "risk discounting among young ghetto heroin users," it was equally valuable in helping us to understand those processes by which some young, white marihuana users became involved in the use of the "dangerous drugs." The key distinction seemed to be in the "ends" rather than the "means." For most young, white drug users heavily involved in a drug-oriented subculture, LSD or "speed" represented the "goal of the drug scene." In the ghetto, heroin was perceived as the "boss high,"141 or, quoting Claude Brown, "the hippest thing was horse."142 While ghetto drug users were generally unwilling to take the "risks" associated with LSD, white drug users were far more likely to avoid the "degradation" associated with heroin involvement. Although there was a gradual growth in the number of exceptions to these generalizations throughout the Sixties, it was recognized that different "progression ladders" were operating in different drug use subcultures. Due to the racial segregation characteristic of the major urban areas in the United States, the most striking distinction (in terms of drugs used in addition to marihuana) was the sociocultural division reflecting this racial dimension.

Other factors made the picture even more complicated. Six of these factors, to be mentioned only briefly here, further undermined traditional, simplistic conceptions of the drug abuse phenomenon. First, the licit overproduction and overuse of prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals came to be recognized as an integral part of the drug problem. Second, the fact that tobacco and alcohol are also "drugs" seemed to be rediscovered. Third, the use of narcotic drugs was documented in otherwise conformist groups, most notably in the medical profession. Fourth, some drug users reported initiation to illicit drug use through experimentation with the "harder" drugs, often heroin. Fifth, the use of heroin and the dangerous drugs, even on a regular basis, did not preclude a continued interest in marihuana. Sixth, the "softer-to-harder" hypothesis was complicated by the fact that most marihuana users did not "graduate," and many "hard" drug abusers were willing and able to switch to a "softer" drug on a temporary or regular basis.

In sum, as the realities of the drug-using world were demythologized, the "stepping-stone" theory became more complex.

D. During the Sixties, there was a growing controversy over the fairness and efficacy of the official government approach to marihuana use.

As the quantitative and qualitative changes in the marihuana-using population were becoming widely acknowledged, and the complexities of the drug abuse phenomenon were emerging from the simplistic myths of the past, the government's punitive approach to marihuana use was being subjected to increasingly careful scrutiny in ma ny quarters. Overt criticism of and resistance to government policies were most noticeable among students, academics, many scientists and attorneys, and the mass media, as well as a wide assortment of anti-establishment spokesmen. Although it is beyond the scope of this report to fully document these changes, we will briefly examine a few developments on the administrative, judicial, and legislative fronts for the purpose of underlining this growing conflict within "the establishment" throughout the 1960's.

In 1962, the White House Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse offered the following statement: "It is the opinion of the Panel that the hazards of marijuana per se have been exaggerated and that long criminal sentences imposed on an occasional user or possessor of the drug are in poor social perspective."143 Although the findings and recommendations of the White House Conference were in line with those presented by government committees many years earlier (i.e., Panama Canal Zone Governor's Committee, 1933; The Mayor's Committee to Study the Marihuana Problem in the City of New York, 1944),144 more than ever before such recommendations were receiving serious official attention. The suggestions of the White House Conference were followed, in 1963, by the recommendations of the President's Advisory Commission. Concerning offenses for the use and possession of small quantities of marihuana, the Commission suggested that all mandatory sentences be eliminated, giving full discretionary powers to judges.145 By 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, was again calling for the removal of mandatory penalties, and a total reevaluation of the punitive approach to the marihuana phenomenon. Although a few members of the Commission urged a more radical departure from past approaches, the full body concluded that "enough information exists to warrant careful study of our present marihuana laws and the propositions on which they are based."146 By 1969, it was generally recognized in government circles that the anti-marihuana laws were being unevenly enforced, were accused of being used for ulterior political motives, and were creating widespread disrespect for law, especially among the young. In addition, the ambivalence of judges throughout the country was indicated by the fact that as the number of arrests rose sharply between 1966 and 1969, the proportion of defendants convicted declined, the percentage incarcerated declined, as did the average length of their sentences.147 All of these themes were examined in the First Report by the Select Committee on Crime, a report based on data collected during 1969 and submitted to the House of Representatives in April of 1970. In a section of the report entitled "Trend Toward Reduced Penalties," the Select Committee called attention to legislative changes over the past few years:

An analysis of the above State laws reveals a recent trend to adopt laws dealing with marihuana less severely for so-called "simple possession" offenses, and where appropriate, parole, deferral and suspension of sentences for first offenses.... In addition, at least 23 States have recently amended their laws to reduce the penalties for violations of the laws dealing with marihuana (Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming). While no State appears to have eliminated all statutory control over the possession and/or sale of marihuana, 23 States now provide misdemeanor type penalties, with suspension and probation possible, for mere so-called possession for personal use type marihuana offenses.

Thus it seems clear that the trend of State amendments to their drug abuse laws is toward a program of care and treatment for the drug addict, more judicial discretion in the sentencing of first offenders, and a reduction of penalties for possession-type marihuana violations.

The above trend is indeed a considerable one and it would be the hope of this committee, as is later pointed out in this report, that the U.S. Government will follow the same trend. Certainly under existing law, the penalty imposed under Federal law is disproportionate to the "crime against society" of experimenting with marihuana....

Criminal conduct cannot be condoned. However, the penalty attached to the prohibited act should bear a rational relationship to the harm or potential harm to others. In the case of simple possession of marihuana (the person who has a small quantity for personal use), it would appear that the penalty proscribed [sic] in both Federal and many State statutes is too severe. 148

By May of 1970, 27 states had reduced penalties for first offenders (possession) and nine others were expected to do so in the near future.149 Public awareness of this controversy can be appreciated when it is remembered that each of these legislative changes followed heated debate in every one of the affected states' legislatures. Such debates included the testimony of respected authorities from many fields, including legal, medical, law enforcement, behavioral science, and judicial representatives, which served to underline the idea that many highly respected and knowledgeable citizens were vehemently opposed to existing state penal provisions. At the same time, public exposure of this controversy and the airing of critical testimony called attention to the fact that the dangers previously associated with marihuana use were being rejected by a growing number of authorities, thus further debunking the premises upon which official federal policies rested.

Thus, by late 1969, the marihuana controversy was at its height and pressure was mounting on the federal government to alter its position. Noted authorities, including anthropologist Margaret Mead150 and Executive Director of the American Bar Foundation, Geoffrey C. Hazzard,151 had come out in favor of repeal of all penalties for possession of marihuana. In California, a police sergeant had joined a "smoke-in" demonstration and a Deputy District Attorney resigned his office, both in protest against the existing marihuana laws and the time "wasted" in their enforcement."152 Editorials in college newspapers throughout the country, from the Yale Daily News 153 to the Stanford Daily 154 called for an end to the criminalization of marihuana use, an appeal that was also sounded by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New Republic, and in an article published by the conservative National Review.

Concern over the constitutionality of anti-marihuana legislation had been voiced in numerous student-run law reviews, including Vanderbilt Law Review, Georgia Law Review, Arkansas Law Review, New York Law Forum, and Iowa Law Review155' Support for the decriminalization of marihuana was even voiced in the Congress, by legislators of various political backgrounds. Two-thirds of the 50 states had revised or were in the process of revising laws covering t, possession and use of marihuana. According to Wald and Hutt, the focus of the marihuana issue had shifted in an important way:

The real issue over marijuana appears to be not whether it causes mild physical damage but whether its use has already spread so widely that, as is true with alcohol, the social costs of efforts to prohibit it exceed the physical costs that would be incurred by eliminating criminal penalties for, or even legalizing, its use. 156

The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, noting that "the Nixon Administration softened its proposed new penalties for marijuana offenses,"157 predicted that "Legalization, proposed by more authoritative voices in 1969 than in earlier years, still appeared unlikely, but penalties for marijuana use were almost certain to be softened by the 91st Congress."158 The American people and their representatives within the administrative, legislative, and judicial branches of government were deeply and at times bitterly divided over the marihuana issue. At the height of this trend toward leniency (valid in terms of first-level enforcement only if calculations are based on the "proportion of violators arrested" rather than on the "arrest rate"159 ) and in the midst of this wide-ranging controversy, Operation Intercept was implemented by the federal government.

The Ineffectiveness of Traditional Controls and the Formation of the Operation Intercept Policy

The qualitative and quantitative changes in the population of marihuana users (therefore, of law violators as well), the recognition of new drug use patterns and the clarification of old ones, and the growing controversy over the marihuana laws were some of the most noted hallmarks of the Sixties. The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse called the marihuana issue a "pungent symbol of dramatic changes which have permanently affected our nation in the last decade."160 Similarly, these developments led Goode to remark: "The increased use of illegal drugs is one of the most dramatic social changes in this decade."161

Whether these trends were primarily a result or a cause of other changes in the society cannot yet be determined. There was obviously a good deal of reciprocity in the relationship between drug use and an array of other sociocultural factors. However, there is widespread agreement that the Sixties was a decade of rapid social change and marked internal differentiation, and there is good reason to believe that the growing use of marihuana and other illegal drugs was a valid indicator of these processes. For the kinds of control mechanisms that failed to limit the use of marihuana were also ineffective in curtailing many forms of disapproved behavior during this period.

As Williams notes, periods of rapid social change are marked by apparent cultural inconsistency and relatively high rates of social nonconformity.162 Further, according to Bennett, when the gap between old and new social institutions is great, as occurs in periods of rapid social change, there is an intensification of cultural instability characterized by conflicting social standards and the weakening of primary social controls.163 Throughout the decade of the Sixties, the three "major kinds of controls" that previously limited the use of marihuana in this country became decreasingly effective in light of rapid social changes within the society.

A. Supply.

As the number of marihuana users rose rapidly during the decade of the Sixties, it became evident that the supply of marihuana coming into the United States was filling this increased demand. In spite of continuous increases in customs operations 164 and border seizures, 165 the use and availability of the drug increased at an even faster rate.

By the late Sixties, although marihuana users tended to be more liberal, less involved in formal religion, and to come from wealthier and better-educated families than non-users, the radicalism, marginality, alienation, and subcultural involvement that characterized their middle-class counterparts of the early Sixties were no longer distinguishing characteristics.166 Noting this change in the marihuana using population, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse stated:

However, all this changed markedly in the mid-1960's. For various reasons, marihuana use became a common form of recreation for many middle and upper class college youth. The trend spread across the country, into the colleges and high schools and into the affluent suburbs as well. Use by American servicemen in Vietnam was frequent. In recent years, use of the drug has spanned every social class and geographic region. 167

When marihuana use began making inroads into the middle class, it was generally associated with the "campus drug culture." As Kaplan observed, by 1969 initiation was no longer confined to this avenue:

Furthermore, in large areas of the United States today, the campus drug culture is no longer necessary to initiate one into marijuana use or to assure a supply of the drug. Marijuana use is so widespread today that many youths who are otherwise "straight" can provide sufficient support, fellowship, and supply for one another.168

The increasing heterogeneity of the using population underscored the fact that "illicit sources" had become available to the ordinary person. It was no longer necessary to participate in "a group organized around values and activities opposing those of the larger conventional society" 169 in order to gain access to marihuana. In fact, most users were getting the drug from a friend or an acquaintance, 170 a person who might be called an "illicit source" only insofar as he was breaking those laws prohibiting the possession and sale of marihuana. In this regard, the illicit source and the marihuana user differed only in degree.

On the other hand, this decade of rapid social change, marked internal differentiation, and high rates of social nonconformity witnessed a substantial growth in the number of individuals and groups "organized around values and activities opposing those of the larger conventional society."171 This situation led analysts of the "new consciousness" - such as Kenneth Keniston, Charles Reich, Theodore Roszak, and Philip Slater - to "recognize the irony in the fact that the most prosperous and educated societies in world history have generated the most massive youthful opposition in world history."172

Whether as a precursor or as a result of youthful opposition (social-political) and simultaneous disengagement (social-psychological), the use of marihuana came to be closely associated with these processes. Keniston saw, "Immersion in drug use as a part of a phase of disengagement from American society," 173 and the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse believed that marihuana use in the Sixties had "become equated with unconventional youth lifestyles."174' To the National Commission, this equation was both real and symbolic: "Marihuana has become both a focus and a symbol of the generation gap and for many young people its use has become an expedient means of protest against adult values." 175 Kaplan concluded that, "Marijuana is perhaps the perfect symbol of this generational conflict." 176

Although more often than not the use of illegal drugs was closely associated with these generational conflicts, assaults on the established order, nonconformist attitudes, and groups organized around the same, most unconventional users opposed the "conventional society" primarily on other grounds. At any rate, the proliferation and expansion of these "opposition groups" and the growth in the marihuana-using population occurred side-by-side. Not surprisingly, this highly heterogeneous population of marihuana users, uniformly regarded as social or legal outcasts by the authorities, gained a degree of unity through the crystallization of this "common cause."177

In sum, control through limitation of the supply and confining access to the drug failed for two reasons. First, many otherwise conventional and law-abiding citizens were able to obtain the drug without participation in groups organized around nonconformist values, attitudes, or behaviors. Thus, although expressing no general opposition to society, their ambivalent situation contributed to the kind of cultural inconsistency characteristic of all periods of rapid social change. Secondly, a growing number of individuals and groups, primarily composed of younger people, were already expressing values and attitudes opposing those of conventional society. The association between nonconformist groups and the use of marihuana, rather than serving as an obstacle or deterrent to drug users and potential drug users, symbolized an added incentive for the growing number of young people who were eager to be with others who shared this orientation.

B. Secrecy.

As Becker points out, most marihuana users in the United States have been "secret deviants."178 The regular user of marihuana either learned to hide the effects of the drug when in the company of non-users or altered his social participations in order to minimize contacts with non-users or he changed both his behavior and his participations.179 Such adjustments were based on the assumption that some kind of sanctions would be applied should the user be -'found out" by non-users. 180

At the same time, marihuana has generally been perceived as a "sociogenic" drug. According to Goode, those factors that distinguish sociogenic drug use from other forms of drug use that are "conducted in relative isolation, without group support" (i.e., the use of barbiturates, tranquilizers and/or amphetamines by housewives; meperidine or morphine addiction among physicians), 181 include the following:

(1) it is characteristically participated in a group setting; (2) the others with whom one smokes marijuana are usually intimates, intimates of intimates, or potential intimates, rather than strangers; (3) one generally has long-term continuing social relations with the others; (4) a certain degree of value consensus will obtain within the group; (5) a value convergence will occur as a result of progressive group involvement; (6) the activity maintains the circle's cohesion, reaffirms its social bonds by acting them out; (7) participants view the activity as a legitimate basis for identity - they define themselves, as well as others, partly on the basis of whether they have participated in the activity or not. In these senses, then, marijuana use is sociogenic. 182

From the time that marihuana smoking came to be associated with the lower classes, specifically within immigrant, minority, and marginal groups in this country, it has been characterized by group initiation, participation, and, to a certain degree, value consensus. Although a shared "in-group" activity, such groups tended to keep this indulgence insulated from outside observation, due to the perceived threat posed by non-users. While "sociogeneity" and the "need for secrecy" appear to represent inherently contradictory reactions to external pressures, this type of bimodal response has characterized many types of deviant, illegal, and nonconformist adaptations in American society. This two-sided response continued to characterize the use of marihuana throughout the Sixties. However, when viewed within the context of those contingent conditions that defined the marihuana issue during this period, both sociogeneity and the need for secrecy took on new meanings. Those new meanings substantially altered the total situation, including the perceptions and responses of users and non-users alike. Each of the aforementioned trends had a direct bearing on this new situation.

First, the total as well as the proportionate growth in the marihuana-using population had a logically necessary result. For those who still felt it important to keep this activity a matter of secrecy, there were now fewer potential sanctioners (non-users) as the number of persons who shared the "secret" increased. Further, since its use was most common in certain areas of the country (the large cities, particularly on the east and west coasts), in certain age groups (persons under 25 years of age), and in certain types of communities (i.e., college campuses), the likelihood of sanctions being applied by non-users was minimized. Within such surroundings, whether or not the user participated in a deviant or marginal subgroup, he was likely to interact with others who used marihuana also, or at least with others who knew others who used it. In fact, in many circumstances, he would find that a majority of persons also engaged in this illegal activity. Thus, the need to mask the effects of the drug was necessary in only specific situations, since contacts with non-users were minimized due to individual social selection processes, the demographic distribution of the activity, and the sheer number of like-minded participants. Under such conditions, few felt constrained to keep their activities secretive, even in many contacts with non-users. For many, the only non-users perceived to pose a significant threat were the representatives of law enforcement agencies.

The qualitative changes in the marihuana-using population changed the meaning of the "need for secrecy" in various ways. Prior to the Sixties, the sociogenic character of marihuana use was closely related to widely shared subcultural experiences, marihuana use being only one element in a complex and divergent lifestyle. Users were likely to be persons who had achieved, or who had been ascribed, a marginal position in society due to their rejection of or by the dominant population. Generally these were marginal individuals, interacting in subcultural groups cut off from the mainstreams of power and influence, whether or not they used illegal drugs. Value consensus as well as progressive group involvement were more closely linked to shared feelings emanating from common experiences with the dominant population than to the group's preference for a particular type of intoxication.

While to a certain degree these observations apply to the hard-core counterculture devotees of the Sixties, most of the middle- and upper-class marihuana smokers of the Sixties were "outsiders" only insofar as they used marihuana. Unlike the "beats," Mexican-Americans, and Negroes, their fear of sanctions was a specific rather than a general response to conflict situations. They were socially secure, they had articulate spokesmen, they were not excluded from the channels of communication and power, and they sought to have their views heard. The sociogenic character of marihuana use became an avenue to change instead of a retreatist adaptation to the fear of external sanctions.

Further, as marihuana use was no longer strictly associated with lower-class groups, it started to lose its "bad reputation" (a reputation based on that previous association instead of on any objective appraisal of the drug itself). Although most users still felt constrained to keep this activity beyond the observation of law enforcement authorities, it was no longer something about w