Toking Their Way Sober: Alcoholics and Marijuana as Folk Medicine

Abstract

In this exploratory study, 18 semistructured life‐history interviews were conducted with heavy drinkers who substituted marijuana for their alcohol use. Folk knowledge on the efficacy of marijuana in self‐treatment for alcoholism, particularly associative depression and anxiety disorders, is examined. The study views the impacts of alcohol and marijuana on the subjects’ ability to sustain viable normative selves in their daily interaction orders. Other instrumental uses of marijuana, consciousness expansion and social facilitation, are also presented as well as how normative dosages of marijuana can be socially constructed and transmitted within rituals of use.

Keywords:

• Alcoholism Treatment
• Medicinal Marijuana
• Marijuana Use
• Consciousness Expansion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Lenza

Michael Lenza is assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Bluffton University and a 2005 graduate of the sociology program at the University of Missouri. His current research interests include historical and institutional foundations for violence, restorative justice programs, and an intergenerational study of folk music in an Ozark clan.