by Dan Savage
Like other American workers, I’ve worked fifty-two weeks per year, year in, year out, for the last decade. Since 1991, I’ve worked ten- and twelve-hour days, nonstop. I work at work, I work at home, I work on weekends, I work at night, I work during my commute. When I have to travel for work, I work on planes, I work in hotel rooms, and I work in cafés, bars, and restaurants. (I’m typing these words in a coffee shop in Chicago filled with other people working on their laptops.) Work, work, work, all I do is work. There’s no time in my life for restful, restorative sloth, no time to stare off into space or let my mind wander. I haven’t been indolent since the first President George Bush was in office, and looking ahead, I don’t see much downtime coming my way. How can I live without sloth and retain my sanity? How can I, like other American workers, be so ridiculously productive? How can I work this hard and without snapping and, for example, beating to death the man sitting next to me in this café yakking into his cell phone about his hair transplants and dinner reservations?
I smoke pot.
Research has shown—actual scientific research, not I’m-the-drug-czar-and-I-said-so fairy tales—that marijuana interferes with a pot smoker’s ability to judge correctly the passage of time. The active ingredient in pot, THC, enters the bloodstream through the millions of alveoli in the lungs. THC mimics the actions of a naturally occurring neurotransmitter called anandamide, which binds with certain receptors in the brain, filling the gaps between synapses. The synapses affected by THC in the hippocampus, a thumb-shaped lobe under the pituitary gland, interfere with the normal function of short-term memory. In other words, pot slows stuff down—way, way down. The better the pot, the slower time seems to pass, and the potency of pot has greatly increased in the last twenty-five years. Thirty years ago, people were smoking Cannabis sativa, with a THC content of 0.5 to 2.0 percent. The pot we smoke now is Cannabis indica, which has a THC content of 8 to 10 percent. Why the switch? More potent pot facilitates smuggling and transportation; the stronger the stuff is, the less of it has to be moved from place to place, and the more you can charge for it. Potent pot is better for pot smokers, too, since we don’t have to smoke as much to get high. (Smoking is bad for you, you know.) When you’re high, five minutes feels like a lazy afternoon, and six hours feels like a week at the beach. The morning after one of my infrequent pot nights, I wake up feeling like I just got back from a week’s vacation. I’m rested, content, and ready—ready to go back to work and kill myself. Pot gives me biannual, concentrated doses of restful, restorative, fattening sloth. Thanks to THC’s ability to slow down the passage of time, pot is as close as many pot-smoking American workers ever get to a week off. Two nights high = two weeks off. Three nights = three weeks off. Four nights high and, hey, you’re the fucking president of France.
I would estimate that millions of American workers (perhaps even as many as 100 billion) would love nothing more than a month of paid vacation or, at the very least, the two weeks’ paid vacation they have coming to them. But no one gets a month off in George W. Bush’s America—no one except George W. Bush. So overworked, underslothed Americans take a month off the only way they can get it: one puff at a time. Millions of Americans who can’t get away from work physically get away pharmacologically. And if our political leaders want the American worker to remain the most productive on the planet, well, then perhaps it’s time to can the guilt trips about our drug use and legalize pot.
My sister Laura is a drug-abuse counselor, and I don’t doubt that she’s a very good drug-abuse counselor. Laura is opposed to drug legalization, she says, because she’s seen what drugs can do to people. I’ve pointed out to her on many occasions that drug-abuse counselors only see the bad things drugs do to people, since people who don’t have a problem with drugs don’t go (or get sent) to drug-abuse counselors. Nevertheless, my sister has an “issue,” as drug-abuse counselors like to say, with anyone advocating the use of any drug, even marijuana. My sister has helped a lot of people who have problems with drugs, and I think that’s just swell. Really. People who are addicted to drugs—including nicotine and alcohol—need all the help they can get. The problem I have with my sister, though, is that I don’t have a problem with drugs and yet my sister insists on trying to help me.
When the subject of my marijuana use comes up at family gatherings, she purses her lips and looks at me with pity in her eyes. “All drug use is abuse, Danny,” she usually says, slowly shaking her head.
“Not my drug use,” I usually respond. “I don’t abuse drugs. I use them. Very occasionally, very responsibly.”
“That’s what all addicts always say,” she serves. “They all say, ‘I don’t abuse, I use.’ And it’s always a lie.”
“It may be a lie when an addict says it,” I volley, “but I’m not an addict, so it’s not a lie when I say it.” (We abuse italics in my family; it’s a bad habit we picked up from our mother.)
Whenever my sister starts to lose the argument about drug legalization, which she always does, she resorts to the I’m-a-drug-abuse-counselor look. She cocks her head to one side, pulls in her chin, purses her lips, and raises her eyebrows. The look says, “Suuuuuuuuure, Danny, you’re not a drug addict.” I think my sister took three graduate-level seminars to master that sure-you’re-not-a-drug-addict look. The look makes me defensive. (“I am not an addict! Mom! Tell Laura to stop calling me an addict!”) That’s the whole point of the look: In the batty circular logic of American Twelve Step programs, defensively denying that you’re an addict is rock-solid proof that you are, in fact, an addict. Insisting that you have a right to be defensive since you’re defending yourself against a charge that isn’t true just digs you in deeper. Denying something that isn’t true only proves you’re in denial, and all addicts are in denial until they admit they’re addicts, at which point they’re in recovery. Which is where my sister would like to see me.
My sister and I live thousands of miles away from each other, so for all she knows I lie around my house all day long with a needle in my arm, covered in my own excrement, and clean myself up only for the occasional family visit. When I describe to her the circumstances of my pot use—twice a year tops, at home, in bed—she accuses me of minimizing my problem in order to win the argument. If I came clean and told the whole family how much pot I really smoke, then everyone would know what my sister instinctively knows: I’m an addict.
But if I’m an addict, how come I’m able to hold on to my job, meet my various deadlines, and keep up with a strict personal hygiene regimen?
The last time we had this argument, my sister, under pressure from my mother (“Laura, would you please tell your brother he’s not an addict!”), finally conceded that it was possible that I just might not be a drug addict.
“You’re still abusing drugs,” she insisted, “which you get away with because you’re what we call a ‘highly-functional’ drug abuser.”
Which brings us back to the kid in the Partnership for a Drug-Free America ad.
School, piano lessons, soccer practice, that boob of a mother—if that kid didn’t have access to marijuana, I would be tempted to buy him a huge bag of pot myself. (The kid and his mother are, I realize, entirely fictional. And honestly, Officer, I would never buy a child a bag of pot. That would be wrong and illegal. And all the stuff in this chapter about me smoking pot? Made it up. Didn’t happen. Never touched the stuff. Didn’t lick those doorknobs either.) Not satisfied with working herself to death, that kid’s parents are working him to death—and he’s not alone. Our kids may not be making shoes in Nike sweatshops, but American kids have as little time for sloth as American parents. We march our kids from school to piano lessons to soccer practice to scheduled “play-dates” at the homes of vetted, screened, preapproved “friends.” The kid in the ad is as busy as his parents, with just as little time for sloth.
At the end of a day like that—school, piano lessons, soccer practice—that kid deserves a little sloth, doncha think? I’m not in favor of young peo
ple smoking pot; like beer, pot is for grown-ups. But if we’re going to eliminate sloth from the lives of young people—if we’re going to work our kids to death, too—who can blame them for taking sloth in concentrated doses? If this particular kid can get high and keep his grades up and make it to piano lessons and remember which end of the field to kick the soccer ball to and pull the wool over his mother’s eyes, then he must be a “highly functional” pot smoker, just like I am.
No one wants to see young people using drugs, of course. I believe that pot, alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, sex, and air travel are for adults only. I hate walking to my local coffee shop and seeing all the teenagers out front abusing the legal drugs in coffee and cigarettes. But if a kid is going to abuse a substance, however, he’s much better off smoking pot than he is drinking beer or smoking cigarettes. Marijuana is less addictive than alcohol and nicotine (and caffeine), and the long-term health consequences of moderate pot use are infinitely less deadly. Fifty thousand people die in the United States every year from alcohol poisoning; four hundred thousand die every year from cigarette-related illnesses. Despite what the Partnership for a Drug-Free America would like us to believe, it’s simply impossible to overdose on marijuana. According to The Lancet, a European medical journal, “the smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. . . . It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat than alcohol or cigarettes.”
Will kids who smoke dope become addicted to pot or other hard drugs? Most likely not. According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, fewer than one in ten young marijuana smokers become regular users of the drug, and most who do become regular users voluntarily stop using marijuana in their thirties. While pot smoking isn’t good for growing lungs and brains, it is clinically proven to reduce feelings of aggression, which is a serious problem among adolescent males in the United States. (Maybe if we called pot Ritalin, people would be more comfortable with it.) Personally, I would rather see a stressed-out teenage boy pick up a bong every once in a while than pick up a gun and shoot his parents, teachers, classmates, soccer coach, and piano teacher to death.
One reason we’re told we can’t legalize pot is because it would send a “mixed message” to kids. I don’t understand why we can’t tell kids the same thing about pot that we tell them about beer: It’s for adults. That might make pot seem like a “forbidden,” grown-up pleasure, but I don’t see how “for adults only” makes something any more alluringly forbidden than “so much fun it’s illegal.” Maybe our message to kids should be the facts: Recreational drugs can be hard on your system, they aren’t good for growing bodies, and some drugs are infinitely more dangerous than others. Of all the drugs you shouldn’t be using—which includes booze—pot is the least dangerous. While we would prefer you not to use drugs while you’re young, if you’re going to use drugs, please use them in a safe place, don’t drive on drugs, and drugs are no excuse for engaging in risky behaviors you wouldn’t otherwise perform.
Or we could teach kids that soft drugs like pot, much like booze, is something that can be safely enjoyed in moderation. In an editorial about drinking, the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Judge complained about local governments and universities banning happy hours, two-for-ones, and other drink promotions. “The problem,” Judge writes, “is that many Americans see boozing as somehow immoral. . . . Studies by the Berkeley Alcohol Research Group and a host of others find that nations that teach children moderation over abstinence, such as France, Spain, and Italy, may have higher overall rates of alcohol consumption, but far lower rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related disease.” Encouraging responsible indulgence, Judge concludes, “is a sure way to guard against excess than preaching abstention.” Why can’t we take—and why isn’t the Wall Street Journal promoting—the same approach when it comes to pot?
Yes, it might mean delivering the dreaded “mixed message,” but the truth is often a mixed message. Right wingers always and left wingers often want all or nothing, black or white, when it’s often neither or both. The truth is, not all drugs are created equal, and the mix of different drugs available in American schools requires a mix of messages. Again, I’m not in favor of encouraging kids to use drugs. Kids do use drugs, though, and they’re familiar with drugs, and that means messages we send them about drugs must have something to do with reality or the kids will tune them out. Currently the only message virtuecrats want people to give kids is that all drugs are equally bad, equally harmful, and equally deadly. It’s a lie, and they’re on to us. We’ve been giving kids this unmixed message for decades, and kids go right on experimenting with drugs, hard and soft. Why? Because kids are likelier to believe their own eyes and their friends than the lies of drug czars (not that kids watch a lot of C-SPAN) and “educators” who’ve made it their mission to misinform them.
Here’s a case in point: cartoonist/illustrator Ellen Forney drew a one-page comic that appeared in The Stranger, the weekly newspaper I edit in Seattle, Washington. Her comic, “How D’Ya Smoke Pot and Stay Out of Jail?,” was full of tips for potheads from a criminal defense lawyer. Two weeks after the comic appeared in The Stranger, a package arrived at our offices for Ellen.
“The 6th Grade students in room 9 at Bow Lake Elementary value the core principles of freedom of speech and press,” wrote Jason J. Dodge, a teacher at Bow Lake. “At the same time, we also value productive freedom of press and speech. Interestingly, we ask our children to steer away from things like drugs, alcohol, and other choices that lead to negative experiences. So why, then, do adults write articles informing people how to use drugs without getting caught? My students and I just couldn’t figure why someone would write an article supporting the use of illegal drugs.”
Enclosed with Mr. Dodge’s letter were more than twenty letters from his sixth-grade students:
“When my teacher showed us your article I was surprised that anybody would write a stupid and useless article,” wrote Amy.
“I’m writing this letter because of how to pot smoke and get away with pot smoke. I think about this article that is bad because it is helping people how to pot smoke but I think it is bad to pot smoke,” wrote Josh, barely.
“Do you know that drugs can take away 20 or 30 years of your life? Also they can kill you or you can become high and drive and kill other people, and they can become addicted,” wrote Nicole.
“You have the right to freedom of the press but you also have the right to remain silence,” wrote Artem.
“If you wrote this in a different country, you would get your hands cut off and be sent to jail forever,” wrote A Concerned Sixth Grader.
“All people who smoke pot grow up to be criminals. They go to jail,” wrote Galib.
“If you had a child in the sixth grade, would you want him/her to read the article you wrote?” wrote Sammy.
Where do I start?
First of all, Ellen Forney didn’t give her comic to a room full of children in the sixth grade. Mr. Dodge did. (Now all of them know how to smoke dope without getting caught—good work, Mr. Dodge!) Second, kids say the darnedest things, don’t they? Especially when an authority figure is standing at the front of the classroom and orders them to say the darnedest things. Clearly the children in Mr. Dodge’s class don’t know the first thing about marijuana—the first true thing, I should say. What they do know about marijuana—it shortens your life by twenty years, you’ll die, you’ll go to jail, you’ll be a criminal—is nothing but a bunch of lies drilled into their little heads by Mr. Dodge and police officers from the Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE) programs.
Mr. Dodge and DARE may be able to fool a room full of sixth graders into believing that people who “pot smoke” are all criminals who wind up in jail or dead. But what’s going to happen to Mr. Dodge’s students when they get into high school or college and start meeting other kids and adults who’ve smoked pot and weren’t harmed by it and refuse to “remain silence” in the face of DARE hysteria and scare tactics? I wonder how Mr. D
odge’s kids will react to the news that former President Bill Clinton smoked pot. Can you imagine the looks on their little faces when they find out that former Vice President Al Gore smoked pot, as did former Senator Bill Bradley, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and New York Governor George Pataki? George W. Bush refuses to deny that he ever smoked pot, which strikes the high school students I know as an admission of guilt.
What happens when kids who have been lied to about drugs grow up and discover the truth?
“In junior high, the drug-free group was the place to be,” writes Marissa K. Kingen, a freelance writer. “I was an enthusiastic member.” When Kingen got to high school she learned that, “the Red Ribbon anti-drug week was a joke, and only stoners wore DARE T-shirts. (Many of our teachers had to look up ‘irony’ in the dictionary.)” At college, Kingen’s eyes were opened to the reality of marijuana. “When you get to college, no matter what college, it’s pretty easy to look around your hall and find someone who smokes pot casually and has not ruined his or her life. This undermines the entire extremist message [of] our government-run ‘education’ programs. . . . Once it’s clear that you’ve been had, it’s easy to ignore the whole spiel.”
Most researchers who have looked into the effectiveness of DARE/scare programs have shown them not to have any impact on whether or not kids use drugs later in life; some researchers have even found that DARE actually backfires. The U.S. Surgeon General and the National Academy of Sciences have issued reports that describe DARE programs as ineffective. A University of Kentucky study found DARE had no measurable impact on drug use; a six-year study at the University of Illinois found that children who had been subjected to DARE’s scare tactics were more likely to use drugs in high school.