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NewsWeek - January 15, 1945 - MEDICINE
Army Study of Marihuana Smokers Points
to Better Ways of Treatment
“You get hot and you feel that you’re going to freeze.
You like to go to one of those freaky dens where you can look at bodies
sprawled out. You want to listen to
the frantic tom-tom of the Duke. . . “
The soldier’s face wore an ecstatic expression.
In a low, dreamy whisper, he continued: “The Army’s all right as long
as I keep my stuff on hand. I can’t live without it.”
Doctors diagnosed the case as drug addiction (Cannabis
sativa, or marihuana) and confined the man to the Army Air Forces regional
Station hospital, March Field, Calif. There
he became one of a group of 35 confirmed marihuana smokers, subjects of an
intensive seven-month Army medical study. This was probably the first intimate scientific
investigation, either of a civilian or military nature, of the cause and
treatment of this little understood habit.
Last week in the magazine War Medicine, two of the
hospital’s psychiatrist, Capt. Eli Marcovitz and Capt. Henry J. Myers, made
their first official report on the experiment.
It added up to the fact that marihuana smoking a notoriously troublesome
civilian problem, becomes even more serious when combined with military service.
“In effect,” the doctors reported, “the soldiers felt and acted
like enemy aliens toward society.”
The Reefer Men: Of
the experimental group 34 were Negroes and one was white.
They were referred to the hospital’s neuropschiatric service because of
(1) chronic physical complaints, chiefly headaches; (2) intoxication, with
uncontrolled behavior or a state of near-stupor; (3) open demands to superior
officers that they be given passes to go out for marihuana; (4) violence or
self-mutilating action (mainly wrist-slashing) in the guard house.
As a group, the soldiers had civilian histories packed with
adverse family, social and economic factors.
Only five had graduated from high school. For 24 there were records of arrests and sentences to reform
schools and jails. The offenses
ranged from assault to burglary, drunkenness, vagrancy, and carrying concealed
weapons.
Of 32 subjects seventeen were single and fifteen married
men were either separated or divorced. In
most cases sexual activity began as early as 13 or 14 years.
Many of the soldiers had never worked at all.
Some were supported by their women friends and some by gambling or drug
peddling. One had had twenty jobs
in three years. Another, who had
never held a job longer than a month, said:
I ain’t for working.”
The marihuana
Personality: Unlike alcoholics,
these marihuana users showed no sense of guilt or remorse.
They were indifferent to opinion, and they frequently tried to persuade
the doctors that they and other “squares” (non-users) ought to try marihuana
because they were missing "“he greatest thing in life."
A great many of them attempted to form a compensatory image
of themselves as superior people. “I
could be a general like MacArthur,” one asserted. “He looks smooth -- like he’s high all the time.”
Toward women their attitude combined indifference with
extreme promiscuity. Most of them
said they would take marihuana instead of girls if they had to make a choice.
On the other hand, some spoke glowingly of the “reefer pads”
(marihuana dens) and the freakish women” there -- women who, with or without
drugs, were uninhibited sexually. Some said frankly that marihuana increased their feeling of
sexual potency. “After you smoke
it,” said one, “you feel that no woman can resist you.”
In civilian life the men were unable to stand frustration,
deprivation, or authority. Their
response to such situations was “explosive aggression.”
Even though some began their Army service with attempts to be good
soldiers the old patterns reasserted themselves.
Either their “smoking” increased or they ran into trouble with their
superiors.
Bad Soldiers:
In addition to inadequate performance, there was the problem of
discipline in the marihuana group. Many
could not stand being reprimanded.
Commanding officers’ reports included these quotes:
“A potentially dangerous man, under constant observation for untoward
behavior.” “It is difficult to
assign him to a duty which he will fulfill without continued prodding.”
The Way Out:
In the hospital these men revealed “the usual behavior of the outlaw
who rejects and rebels against the authority from which he really wants love and
of which he longs to be a part."
After a few weeks of sedatives, certain freedoms, and
sympathetic encouragement, “hostility diminished and they showed evidence of
better rapport.” They were still
not able or willing to do any useful work in the wards. But there was sufficient change in their attitude to make it
seem reasonable that a patient, long-term therapeutic program carried out under
favorable conditions might
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