Cannabis: Global Histories by Lucas Richert & Jim Mills

Author:Lucas Richert & Jim Mills [Richert, Lucas & Mills, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cannabis; drugs; colonialism; economics; health; history; imperialism; medicine; psychiatry, social history, history, Health Policy, Medical, political science, Agriculture & Food Policy, Public Policy
ISBN: 9780262045209
Google: DOs2EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2021-08-03T00:26:11.984551+00:00

There were other cases of this kind, but because the aim was to prove that marijuana did not produce madness or violence, they were easily written off. Segura himself smoked two of the marijuana cigarettes as was recommended to him by seasoned users and had an intense anxiety reaction accompanied by significant fear. Another medical student, after smoking a similar amount, also became very frightened. A female subject responded in a similar way. Another very experienced and unusually articulate user described such bad reactions in detail. “When there is a certain excess, one is overcome by a very specific mental state, one experiences a feeling of inferiority which is translated into a kind of fear mixed with shame and depressing ideas, marked by a certain mental propensity to believe in syncope or collapse, which in my case has never occurred but which I have witnessed in a neophyte.”38

Finally, and of particular importance, were various negative outcomes when cannabis was mixed with alcohol. One female subject was given cigarettes of marijuana mixed with tobacco after having already ingested several cocktails. She soon began vomiting and entered into “a spasmodic crisis of laughing and crying,” along with convulsions, before falling into a deep sleep. Her friend had a similar reaction of wild laughter and intense convulsions. These were explained as being simply the symptoms of alcoholic intoxication in the first, and hysteria in the second, and thus having had nothing to do with the cannabis.39

To prove it, various subjects were given large doses of alcohol followed by marijuana. Two subjects were asked to drink about 10 ounces of mescal over the course of an hour. While one of the subjects continued to act normally, the second, “F. L. M.,” swayed about completely drunk, and with slurred speech bragged that he was the “better drug addict” of the two. Each was then given a pure marijuana cigarette to smoke. F. L. M. had to lie down, leading the other to comment that his friend lacked stamina. This nearly provoked a fight and the two had to be separated.

Segura explained that F. L. M. had previously been in prison and was known for acting like that when he was drinking, thus the role of marijuana was totally discounted. And, to be clear, various other subjects mixed alcohol and marijuana to no ill effect.40 But under questioning, many of the more seasoned users, while emphasizing never having experienced “visions, hallucinations, or aggression” while using marijuana alone, argued that the combination of alcohol and marijuana indeed produced violence. E. L., a thirty-year-old heroin addict, noted that, “when marihuanos mix marijuana with alcohol they become very irritable and quarrelsome.” S. R., another heroin addict, claimed that while he’d never seen a pure marihuano be aggressive, “He’s seen alcoholics who mix that intoxication with marijuana, and who when they are completely drunk get worked up ‘like crazies.’” J. G., a thirty-nine-year-old marihuano, similarly reported that people who mixed alcohol with marijuana wind up “acting like madmen.” J. V. E.

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