Marijuana In The Square

THE psychedelic drug scandal has come one gone without shaking the faith of a small but dedicated segment of the community in plain old marijuana. Cambridge does not have a drug problem. It does, however, harbor a very small sub-culture that regards cannabis as little less than a necessity. These people are not addicts, because marijuana, or "pot" as it is better known by devotees and would-be hipsters ("weed," "grass" and less printable names are also used), does not cause addiction. Still, a few local residents would agree with the young man who declared passionately. "I love pot."

This group is closely related to the long haired denizens of "The Bick," but the two are not identical and should not be parleyed into the stock image of a "dope-addicted beatnik." Those who use marijuana include artists and writers, pseudo-artists and pseudo-writers, and frankly non-creative people. Both students and non-students belong. Outsiders can safely place many of these people in the romantic, if nebulous, image of "the Cambridge Underground."

Uninitiates may wonder how, and why, these people get marijuana. The "how" is simple. Most of the marijuana in local circulation comes from New York, although an occasional batch enters directly from overseas and some "very good stuff" is grown in Greater Boston. Prospective buyers need only know someone who knows someone. Virtually anyone can easily pick up a nickel ($5) bag, which contains less than an ounce of marijuana.

Why is marijuana so easy to obtain in Cambridge? Chiefly because so few people want and use it. It circulates freely in a limited circle, but the local supply is negligible compared to what one finds in Boston proper; and much less narcotics is used in Boston than in other major U.S. cities. Heroin and other addictive substances hardly exist in Harvard Square. If Federal narcotics agents concentrated much effort here, they would be like policemen looking for small boys stealing apples while bank robbers ran free.

Actually neither narcotics agents nor the University knows much about the drug traffic in the Square, beyond the fact that it is slight. Both realize that "there has to be" marijuana round and they can guess with little difficulty who has it. They cannot however, cite many names or statistics.

Heroin and cocaine are rare here only partly because they are expensive and hard to get. Very few local people want them. It is one thing to try hallucinatory compounds, such as psylocibin and quite another to try drugs that almost invariably lead to addiction. Most local users of marijuana have no desire to risk addiction.

This leads back to the question, "why do people smoke marijuana in the first place?" Dr. Preston Munster, Assistant Director of the University Health Services, declared that "anybody who uses drugs, be they marijuana, LSD, mescaline or heroin, has some deep and recognizable psychological problem." This would be difficult to prove or disprove and, even if it were true, it would not answer any questions about conscious motivation.

The idea that pot smokers are "wild youngsters looking for kicks" does not hold up. It may apply to those smoking for the first time, or to those who smoke rarely, but it does not explain regular smokers. The idea that smoking is an escape makes more sense. When a person is "high," good things may seem better, problems may seem less pressing, and he may derive pleasure and amusement from unexpected sources. One man said, "I'd like to stay high twenty-four hours a day, but I guess if I did, I'd never get anything done."

However important the desire to escape may be, it seldom provides the principal conscious motivation for using marijuana. Smokers find that "pot" does not merely reduce or remove the negative effects of the outside world, but that it has great positive effects of its own. People get a sense of well-being or happiness when they are "high" that does not have to be seen in contrast to their more depressed sober moments.

But many seek, and believe they find, more than just happiness. Some of these people fall into the category of those who go through life collecting every available "experience." The more intellectual collect experiences, hold them up to the light, and dissect them meticulously; others simply absorb experiences indescriminately. Such people might find what they consider valuable experience in hitch-hiking to Peru, working on a garbage scow or sleeping with a Hottentot. Marijuana provides just one more piece of bric-a-brac for their emotional trophy case.

But there is no reason to suppose that marijuana smokers are all roman- be fools. Many feel that marijuana gives them greater insights and a richer view of the world around them, just as the more powerful hallucenogenic drugs purportedly do. Some people can even hallucinate on marijuana.

Not everyone who smokes marijuana enjoys the experience. Some people dislike the numbness or tingling of the limbs that the drug can produce. Others become very sleepy. And those who have been drinking first sometimes become violently Marijuana almost always impairs the smoker's judgment and self-control.

Those who find aesthetic value in smoking marijuana develop their own rituals and mystique. Although they may smoke almost any time and anyplace, they prefer company and settings in which the experience can be "really beautiful." Different people prefer to listen to oriental music or jazz, to look at paintings or simply to walk the streets. In any case, the experienced smoker adjusts his mental attitude to get the greatest possible effect from his "pot."

Almost everywhere, the actual pro-1