Becoming a Marihuana User
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Becker doesn’t judge, but neither does he holler for legalization, tell you how to grow it in a hollowed-out dresser, or anything else like that for which there are plenty of other books you can buy. Instead, he looks at marijuana with a clear sociological lens—as a substance that some people enjoy, and that some others have decided none of us should. From there he asks: so how do people decide to get high, and what kind of experience do they have as a result of being part of the marijuana world? What he discovers will bother some, especially those who proselytize the irrefutably stunning effects of the latest strain: chemistry isn’t everything—the important thing about pot is how we interact with it. We learn to be high. We learn to like it. And from there, we teach others, passing the pipe in a circle that begins to resemble a bona fide community, defined by shared norms, values, and definitions just like any other community.
All throughout this book, you’ll see the intimate moments when this transformation takes place. You’ll see people doing it for the first time and those with considerable experience. You’ll see the early signs of the truths that have come to define the marijuana experience: that you probably won’t get high at first, that you have to hold the hit in, and that there are other people here who are going to smoke that, too.
Howard S. Becker
Howard S. Becker is author of many books including Telling About Society, Writing for Social Scientists, and Outsiders.
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Becoming a Marihuana User - Howard S. Becker
Becoming a Marihuana User
Becoming a Marihuana User
Howard S. Becker
With a New Preface
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Howard S. Becker is the author of several books, including Writing for Social Scientists, Telling About Society, Tricks of the Trade, and, most recently, What About Mozart? What About Murder? He currently lives and works in San Francisco.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015, 1953 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-33290-1 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-33984-9 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208 / chicago / 9780226339849.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Becker, Howard Saul, 1928– author.
Becoming a marihuana user / Howard S. Becker ; with a new preface.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-226-33290-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-33984-9 (ebook) 1. Marijuana—Social aspects. 2. Marijuana—Physiological effect. 3. Marijuana abuse. I. Title.
HV5822.M3B395 2015
362.29'5—dc23
2015018481
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Preface
Abstract
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Notes
Preface
When I wrote Becoming a Marihuana User
in the early 1950s, you couldn’t use the substance legally anywhere in the United States, although you could certainly use it. And many people did. It wasn’t, at the time, a Social Evil which deserved a place in the Social Problems
course every sociology department taught. Crime, mental illness, gangs . . . things like that were social problems. But relatively few people used marijuana and they didn’t make a lot of trouble, so despite the efforts of some authorities, no public was crying out to get rid of the practice.
Because no one cared much about it, no government agencies gave scientists money to study it, and there was almost no scientific literature about it. Opiate addiction, on the other hand, had produced the junkie,
a social type whose craving for his drug
led him to commit crimes. Most