"Stoned Kids Think They Can Handle It"
by Albert Rosenfeld
(Photos maybe by Bill Cleary)
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| A group of California subteens assemble at a beach house for a weekend pot party. |
A group of youngsters—the oldest was 14—formed a circle and
solemnly inhaled on a Turkish water pipe until their eyes were glazed and
distant. All of them were deep-tanned, sun-bleached, sports-playing,
California-affluent junior-high-schoolers, good students and normal children
whose parents thought they were off on a picnic. Instead they were
stoned—laughing, excited, talking eagerly. Their talk turned to a zealous
defense of pot, coupled with a scorn for the other world they see around them.
"Just be- cause 95% of the junkies who take heroin have smoked marijuana,
everybody gets up in arms.… It's just not logical. It's not true. We're smarter
than that," one boasted. "Kids are a lot more intelligent
today," another claimed. "Smoking marijuana makes things look like
they really are, and when you can see things clearly you can talk about them
and learn."
This is childish bravado, heightened by the marijuana
itself. The kids who are so sure they can handle it do not understand the
nature of what they are dealing with, nor its effect on their attitudes and outlook.
Carelessly tolerant grown-ups do not help either—nor do the older brothers who
slip the kids marijuana. In California—and the problem is by no means limited
to that state—marijuana arrests of juveniles last year were up 140%, and a
state narcotics official predicts some 20,000 arrests by 1971. "It's going
to take the combined effort of the whole society to cure this thing," says
a Los Angeles police officer. But few people, even those now beginning to be
deeply concerned, seem to know where to begin.
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| As his high takes effect, one boy enhances the mood by blowing soap bubbles... |
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| ...while a second indulges his reverie by smoking yet another marijuana cigaret right down to the butt. |
