"...apathy, loss of effectiveness , and diminished capacity or willingness to carry out complex, long-term plans, endure frustration, concentrate for long periods, follow routines, or successfully master new material. Verbal facility is often impaired both in speaking and writing. Some individuals exhibit greater introversion, become totally involved with the present at the expense of future goals and demonstrate a strong tendency toward regressive, childlike, magical thinking."
There is no doubt than many young individuals have changed from clean, aggressive, upwardly mobile achievers into the sort of person just described at about the same time as they started smoking marijuana. What is not clear, however, is a casual relationship between the loss of middle class motivations and cannabis. Which comes first, the marijuana or the loss of motivations? This is not easy to answer. In fact, there may be no clear-cut answer. To begin with, all we know about the amotivational syndrome is a result of a few case histories. These data can not answer questions about: a) how common the syndrome is; b) whether the marijuana actually caused the change in behavior; or c) if the change is caused by marijuana, if it is best described as a change in all motivation, like ability or personality.
It does not appear as though the amotivational syndrome is all that common among marijuana smokers. In one survey [2]] a sample of almost 2000 college students were studied. There were no difference in grade point average and achievement between marijuana users and nonusers, but the users have more difficulty deciding on career goals, and a small number were seeking advanced professional degrees. On the other hand, other studies have shown lower school averages and higher dropout rates among users and nonusers. In any case these differences are not great. If there is such a thing as amotivational syndrome, its affects appear to be restricted to a few individuals, probably the small percentage who became heavy users.
laboratory studies provide additional information on the casual relationship between motivation and marijuana. The Mendelson [3] experiment, where hospitalized volunteers worked on an operant task to earn money and marijuana for 26 days, found that the dose of marijuana smoked did not influence the amount of work done by either the casual-user group or the heavy-user group; all remained motivated to earn and take home a sufficient amount of money in addition to the work they did for the marijuana. It seems clear that marijuana does not cause a loss of motivation.
While marijuana does not specifically diminish motivation, it is clear that cannabis affects attention and memory, and these are intellectual capacities usually considered necessary for success in educational institutions. We know that a significant tolerance develops to these effects and they can be suppressed voluntarily at low doses, but consistent smoking of high doses of marijuana must impede a successful academic career. In fact, achievement motivation must be high indeed in any individual who combines high levels of cannabis use with a successful academic career.
Since most reports of the amotivational syndrome originated in the sixties in North America, what they seem to describe is a tendency for college students to 'drop out' and assume a lifestyle that rejects traditional achievement motivations of their parents' generation. In an effort to understand this rejection it is very easy to believe that it is pharmacological and to dismiss it as 'amotivational syndrome.'
[1] McGlothin, W.H., & West, L.J. (1968). The marijuana problem: An overview. _American Journal of Psychiatry_, vol. 125, 370-378.
[2] Brill, N.Q., & Christie, R.L. (1974). Marijuana and psychosocial adjustment. _Archives of General Psychiatry_, vol. 31, 713-719.
[3] Mendelson, H.H., Kuehnle, J.C., Greenburg, I., & Mello, N.K. (1976). The affects of marijuana use on human operant behavior: Individual data. In M.C. Broude & S. Szara (eds.), _Pharmacology of marijuana_, vol. 2 (pp. 643-653). New York: Academic Press.
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Message-ID: <052305Z17091993@anon.penet.fi>
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: an13187@anon.penet.fi (H-Man)
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 05:13:33 UTC
Subject: Weil: Amotivational syndrome
Hey all! I just read THE NATURAL MIND by Andrew Weil. Although it dealt with ACID and MARIJUANA too much for my tastes, I typed up some EXCERPTS that I thought you'd like.
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.
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Since, it's a neat article, I thought I'd post it for those without nifty news access. I hope its not too illegal.
-Erik
In <comment236.1992Dec11.063529@AmeriCast.com>americast-post@AmeriCast.Com writes:
HEADLINE: The Corner Hashish Joint Amsterdam's 'Cannabis Cafe' Habitudes Sip Espresso, Nibble Pastries
BYLINE: JEFF KAYE
One of the great pastimes for many of the people who inhibit or visit this picturesque city of tranquil canals and 17th-Century architecture is to linger in a coffeehouse with a cappuccino, a pastry and a big, fat joint stuffed with supercharged dope.
In hundreds of establishments, patrons can casually order up an espresso, a chunk of Napalese hashish and a side order of rolling papers. Just say "Sensimilla," and you get a little packet of marijuana that the purveyor promises will enliven the conversation at your table.
Marijuana and hashish are generally sold right next to the drinks and snacks in the city's extensive network of "coffeeshops" or "cannabis cafes," as they are also known. Sometimes the drugs are available at the counter; sometimes they're sold by a guy sitting over in the corner. There's always a menu specifying type, quantity, and price making comparison shopping easy.
It's just like going to the bar to have a drink'" says Sue Medeiros, an American belly dancer who had lived in Amsterdam for 17 years. "You go into a coffeeshop and have a smoke. I don't do it myself, but I'm not opposed to it. I think it's much better that it's all overboard."
Indeed, coffeehouses offering "soft" drugs have become so pervasive and popular in Amsterdam that they've even splintered into sub-categories that cater to different sorts of customers, like American bars.
At a dimly lit place called the Tweede Kamer (The Second Room), for example, the atmosphere reminiscent of a sports bar, with a noisy all-male crowd sitting around smoking dope while watching Dutch baseball on a TV affixed to the ceiling.
Chocolate has built its reputation around desserts such as homemade cakes, fudge, chocolates and , for true snack connoisseurs, Rice Krispies. The other side, decorated in high-tech modern, is considered the best gay coffeehouse in Amsterdam and features 20 kinds of milk and yogurt shakes, along with the full array of coffees. The extensive drug menu is handwritten on a chalkboard at the front counter.
In many respects, Amsterdam's circuit of coffeeshops is similar to the burgeoning coffeehouse scene in Los Angeles, offering a place for people--mostly youngish-- to relax, hangout with friends, listen to music and consume something other than alcohol.
But where denizens of L.A.'s pik-me-up or Bourgeois Pig' might contemplate whether to get decadent and drop a couple of cubes of sugar into their double-decaf capps, Amsterdam's coffeehouse habitudes consider whether they're in the mood for blood hash ( a giddy high) or dark hash (a serious zonking).
Although it's only 5 feet, 9 inches form floor to ceiling in this stark basement room, the sign reading "Mind Your Head" is not necessarily about avoiding the bump on the noggin.
This is the cellar of the Grasshoper Coffeeshop, but not the part where you buy coffee. This is where you buy the stuff to smoke upstairs with your caffe latte and Earl Grey tea. Unlike most of its counterparts, the Grasshoper has created a separate space for drug sales.
The menu is distinctive: Push a button, and a wall-mounted display case lights up, showing neatly organized little packets of cannabis, each accompanied by the standard consumer information blurb.
There are 14 types of hashish, including "Kashmir," "Lebanon," and "Zero-Zero," and a similar number of marijuana packets with names such as "Grasshoper Special," "Skunk," "Purple Sensi," and "Thai." (Most of the goods cost less than $10 a gram. As one police officer notes, "It's cheap.")
An inflatable globe inside the grasshoper's display case emphasizes the international dimensions of the trade.
Over the corner, behind a glass window like a bank teller, is the friendly house drug dealer, Sander.
"I've got a secret for you," hr says, smiling. He pulls out a rectangular Tupperware container, which surely would have stored yesterday's tuna casserole under different ownership, and opens the lid to expose moist clumps or marijuana.
"You want a blast in your head ?" he asks. "Just have a couple hits, and in ten minutes you won't know what you're going."
The name of this off-the-menu special?
Holland's Hope," Sander says.
Clearly, not everyone is enamored by this flagrant consumption of cannabis, and many consider Amsterdam a sister city of Sodom and Gomorrah. But finding critics within Amsterdam itself isn't easy.
"It's rather accepted in our culture," says Kurt Van Es, who reports on the drug trade for the Dutch newspaper Het Parool. "When there is opposition, it's aimed at hard drugs, or too much noise , or other criminal activity."
Both the Dutch Ministry of Justice and the Amsterdam Police Department proudly point the coffeehouse scene as a social system that has reduced drug-related crime and limited the number of people who abuse hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin.
"We see no harm in possessing or using soft drugs," says Ministry of Justice spokeswoman Jannie Pols. Government research has shown that "most of the people who use soft drugs don't use hard drugs," she adds. "And they stop (smoking marijuana and hashish) after a certain age. We know that."
With those conclusions and states in mind, the government sets out to discourage cannabis users from getting entangled in the world of hard drugs."
"We want to separate the market." says Pols. "That's why the coffeeshops are tolerated. We hope people who want to try soft drugs don't go to people selling hard drugs."
Toleration is an important word here, because none of this is legal. Under the currant drug law, the 1976 Opium Act, the importing, trafficking and possession of cannabis are illegal. But possession and selling of amounts less than 30 grams are classified as misdemeanors and given minimal--read: zilch -- policing priority.
"That's not to say that anarchy prevails. The police strictly enforce rules against selling hard drugs, selling cannabis to minors and advertising. And complaints from neighbors can shut down a coffeeshop.
Police also have struck back at attempts to exceed the boundaries of their tolerance. A factory producing something called "Space Cakes" was raided and closed, as was an enterprising dope-to-your-door delivery outfit Blow Home Courier Service.
Between 20 and 30 coffeeshops are shuttered by police each year for one reason of another, says Klaas Wilting, spokesman for the Amsterdam police.
Ironically, the illegality of the drug business means that cannabis cafes cannot be licensed, so anyone can open one and little is known about how many there are and how much they earn.
Wilting guesses there are 200 coffeeshops in Amsterdam, "maybe more." Journalist Van Es believes there may be as many as 400 and cities Dutch government figures estimating the nationwide value of the soft-drug trade at 650 million guilders a year, or about $400 million.
How does all that dope get to all those coffeeshops?
Don't everybody raise your hand at once.
"I don't know," says police spokesman Wilting.
"I can't tell you that," giggles Sanders, the dealer at the Grasshoper.
The Bulldog is credited with the oldest cannabis cafe in Amsterdam, starting up in 1975, a year before the current drug laws were enacted. It also appears to be the big success story of the coffeehouse scene, with three outlets around Amsterdam, including one of the main entertainment plaza, the Leidseplein. There's also a Bulldog cocktail bar, a Bulldog bicycle rental service and a Bulldog souvenir shop that sells T-shirts, denim jeans, caps, ashtrays, lighters, rolling papers, and shelves of other items, all emblazoned with the company logo of a cartoon bulldog with a studded collar.
At the main Bulldog on the Leidseplein, right next to the giant Burger King, the "house rules" are spelled out over the entrance in Dutch , French, German and English. "No alcohol--No hard drugs--No aggression. By not following the rules, they will be thrown out."
Inside, it is dark, crowded and vibrant, with rock videos blasting out of the TV and customers chatting and passing joints. There doesn't appear to be a nonsmoking section.
At the front counter are two young guys from Zurich. One sips his coffee while the other rolls a joint in a fairly complicated manner that involves twisting the cigarette paper into a cone and slipping off a protruding edge.
"They are tolerant of drugs in Zurich," says one of the guys. "But not like this."
It is not immediately clear where the drug sales take place in here. But closer scrutiny reveals a man with a long black ponytail sitting discreetly in the corner alongside a corner with three drawers. A printer drug menu is on the wall behind him.
The dealer, who says his name is Rowdy, doesn't want to talk much about himself or his livelihood but is willing to give some insights during a lull in sales. He si 34, he's been dealing drugs for 15 years, and he's part of the dealers' cooperative that rents the counter space from the Bulldog. Sensimilla, a particularly potent strain of marijuana, is the most popular item on the menu. Rowdy doesn't want to discuss much else. But, he would like to get in a plug for the Bulldog.
High quality and atmosphere," he says, sounding like a TV commercial. "In Amsterdam, we're still the first and best."
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