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    Becoming a Marihuana User
    Becoming a Marihuana User
    Becoming a Marihuana User
    Ebook47 pages35 minutes

    Becoming a Marihuana User

    By Howard S. Becker

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    About this ebook

    OG Kush. Sour Diesel. Wax, shatter, and vapes. Marijuana has come a long way since its seedy days in the back parking lots of our culture. So has Howard S. Becker, the eminent sociologist, jazz musician, expert on “deviant” culture, and founding NORML board member. When he published Becoming a Marihuana User more than sixty years ago, hardly anyone paid attention—because few people smoked pot. Decades of Cheech and Chong films, Grateful Dead shows, and Cannabis Cups later, and it’s clear—marijuana isn’t just an established commodity, it’s an entire culture. And that’s just the thing—Becker totally called it: pot has everything to do with culture. It’s not a blight on culture, but a culture itself—in fact, you’ll see in this book the first use of the term “users,” rather than “abusers” or “addicts.” Come along on this short little study—now a famous timestamp in weed studies—and you will be astonished at how relevant it is to us today.
               
    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. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateJul 6, 2015
    ISBN9780226339849
    Becoming a Marihuana User
    Author

    Howard S. Becker

    Howard S. Becker has made major contributions to the sociology of deviance, the sociology of art, and the sociology of music. His books include Tricks of the Trade and What About Mozart? What About Murder? He lives and works in San Francisco and Paris.  

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      Book preview

      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

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