Is the Pot User Driven--Or in the Driver's Seat?

Drug users insist that marijuana, amphetamines, LSD and other psychedelic agents give them pleasure, a euphoric "high" and a marvelous expansion of consciousness. A growing body of medical data suggests that they are kidding themselves on all these counts. Psychiatrists and psychologists are coming to the conclusion that potheads and acidheads do not turn on simply for pleasure and thrills, but in a futile attempt to escape profound depression; that if they get high, it is only in an ecstatic defense; and that they do not wind up with an expanded consciousness but with a decidedly contracted one.

Collective Narcissism. In a report to the American Medical Association's convention held in midtown Manhattan last week, Psychologist Anthony F. Philip of Manhattan's Columbia College emphasized that such judgments do not necessarily apply to the thrill-seeking experimenter who smokes a couple of reefers, or even the occasional, "recreational" user. But they do apply, he said, to regular users. The anarchic anti-Establishment attitude of these "pot lushes," Philip added, stems from an "intolerable, chronic, low-grade depression, including 1) a subjective sense that somehow they have been cheated by life in general and by their parents in particular, and 2) a smoldering, tense, brooding sort of resentfulness."

Philip noted that the majority of heavy users seem to have an excessive share of the narcissism generally equated with adolescents. In fact, their pot parties represent a sort of collective, community narcissism: "They congregate in groups to smoke pot, but as soon as they 'turn on' and are 'stoned,' each is alone, absorbed with himself." While they talk about freedom of expression and new avenues of selfdiscovery, Philip found, in most of the cases he has seen at Columbia University, "the student appears to be driven by motivations beyond his conscious awareness and control. The subjective sense of freedom is illusory; the student is being driven rather than being in the driver's seat himself."

Though the drug user may claim that his trip brings intense euphoria and a matchless sense of wellbeing, Philip believes that he is not achieving genuine pleasure but merely canceling out an underlying depression and boredom. Moreover, Philip contends, the habitual user becomes so preoccupied with the drug mystique and the subculture attending it that the effect is a narrowing of consciousness and a focusing of attention upon the drug world instead of the real one. This type of user may claim that he becomes more creative, but actually he becomes less productive, focusing entirely upon the present and ignoring future goals.

Do some young people turn to marijuana and other psychedelics because they are already inclined to be idle, dreamy drifters? Or do they get that way because of their drug experiences? Philip sidestepped that chicken-and-egg controversy. But he suggested that in at least some cases, the regular use of marijuana may be followed by an "amotivational syndrome" marked by apathy and a disinclination to concentrate or to follow through on long-term plans.

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