Selected Bibliography on Marijuana and LSD-type Drugs

Abstract

D AILY PAPERS, weekly magazines, and, increasingly, scientific literature proclaim the advent of marijuana and LSD-type drug use, warning of extreme hazards on the one hand and heralding remarkable benefits on the other. The evangelistic zeal of drug use proponents is rivaled only by the fervor of drug use suppressors. A nonexpert is hard put to evaluate available evidence intelligently because the psychological and scientific competence as well as the fanaticism is equal on both sides. Although the effect of drug use should be objectively determinable, it stubbornly remains a matter of controversy. Its persistence as an open question must result not from the limits of scientific inquiry but from unintentional, or at least unconscious, bias at emotional, intellectual, and even perceptual levels. How else can one reconcile opposing conclusions reached by respectable and competent analysts on such matters as whether LSD causes chromosome breakage? New York and Oregon cytogenetic groups, for example, say it does, while the Donner Laboratory and University of California Medical Center in San Francisco find no evidence of such breakage in their studies of LSD use.' Since the statistics on both sides seem airtight, it seems probable that in some way chromosome breaks at a raw data, observational level were unintentionally but mistakenly projected to be higher than or at control levels. In some instances, however, the techniques of persuasion employed by a drug use advocate or opponent undermines the speaker's claimed objectivity. For example, an attorney advisor for the United States Bureau of Narcotics addressing the National Student Association's First National Conference on Student Drug Involvement on August 16, 1967, handed out an issues paper' containing a subtle but significantly misleading reference.