POTHEAD PH.D.

This Is Most Definitely Not A Cautionary Tale

I never would have made it this far in graduate school without the aid
of marijuana.

Perhaps the title of this column made some people think it would be a
cautionary tale. On the contrary, I think my pot smoking has helped
smooth out the roughness of a Ph.D. program. And frankly, I think the
disturbing issue with a younger generation of graduate students is
that they don't toke up enough. Instead many indulge in things far
worse, both for them physically and for the humanities.

On one level, marijuana is simply fun, of course. However, it has
other worthwhile properties for the abject doctoral student. To begin
with, it's probably the only drug that rewards you for using it. Sure,
if you smoke cheap pesticide-laden stuff, you'll probably feel crummy
the next morning. But if you buy something decent, you'll probably be
good to go after a cup of coffee. I've often been at my most
productive the day after I've indulged.

I'm an insomniac who averages four to five hours of sleep a night. The
best way to deal with a sleeping problem is with regular exercise. But
it's nice to have a secret weapon to knock me out on days when I can't
make it to the gym. I'm certainly better off than peers who have
flirted with Xanax addictions, or who waste their stipends on
genuinely worthless stuff like Ambien or Lunesta.

Some might accuse me of minimizing the danger of a substance that is,
after all, illegal. But it ain't heroin or cocaine. You'll never hear
rumors that an actor's heart stopped or an actress got scary-thin
because he or she was smoking too much pot. For that matter, it ain't
alcohol, which is far worse for one's body and mind.

Of course I'm not arguing that one should smoke out every day. In The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly commands Tom to whitewash a
fence. Pretending to enjoy it, Tom is able to unload the job on a
friend with surprising ease. The narrator then remarks: "If he had
been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he
would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is
obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not
obliged to do."

If you feel obliged to get wasted every time you're stressed, then
smoking will become a part of Work, and will increase your
dissatisfaction with graduate school. But if you use the substance
judiciously, marijuana can remind you that "intellectual labor" is
really a form of Play, and infinitely preferable to most of the jobs
your peers are drudging through.

Hence, I accept Paul Bowles's basic distinction between an
alcohol-drinking culture and a cannabis-smoking culture, with the
latter encouraging inwardness and creativity. It probably comes as no
surprise that I'm a graduate student in the humanities. Literature
departments are still influenced by the legacy of Romantic poets and
their latter-day heirs, the Beats, who used drugs to imagine
alternatives to mainstream society.

Similarly, an offshoot discipline, cultural studies, is pervaded by
neo-Romantics. For example, after his televised debate with Noam
Chomsky in 1971, Michel Foucault was partially paid in hashish. For
weeks afterward, his friends in Paris referred to it as the "Chomsky
hash." Should we be surprised by that anecdote, related by Foucault
biographer James Miller? Let's be honest here: No one could have
written History of Madness or Discipline and Punish while sober.

I'm an analyst of imaginative literature instead of a producer of it.
But I would lay claim to a modest form of drug-induced insight. For
example, I took a demanding seminar in my first year of graduate
school and wanted to impress my professor with a stellar paper.

Naturally, I came down with a bad case of writer's block shortly
before the paper was due. For two hours I did nothing more than use
the cut-and-paste function, treating my essay like a Rubik's Cube:
"If I just move this section here, it will all make sense."

Finally I thought, "Screw this." I decided to shelve the project for a
few hours and toked up instead. Of course I immediately began thinking
about my paper again. But now it seemed like a privilege to consider
economic globalization and its relation to British poetry. Instead of
frantically rearranging sections of text, I started to imagine the
theoretical basis of my essay in holistic terms, and saw a connection
between arguments that I hadn't noticed before.

A few minutes later, I was at my computer, typing a series of notes
that became a satisfying conclusion to my essay. I was very pleased
when my professor told me it was publishable. It certainly wasn't
something I could have come up with while drunk.

And that brings up my worry about a younger generation of scholars.
One thing I've noticed about today's doctoral students is that they
party way harder than I'm used to. My friends and I kept it simple: a
few bong hits, a Stereolab CD, a movie rental.

By contrast, the new cohorts often blow off steam in a manner that
would put undergraduates to shame. The goal is to kick back shots
until your friends have to prop you up inside a top-loading washing
machine, or, better yet, strap you to the roof of a car next to a
cooler, while everyone looks for a designated driver to take them on
an impromptu road trip to Las Vegas.

Then there's the burgeoning rave culture. I admit I've never done
ecstasy. But years ago raves seemed to involve a social idealism that
recreated the ambience of Haight Street, albeit at a higher tempo and
volume. A friend once said of ecstasy, "It's great. You have to try
it. When you're on it, you love everyone." The parties were
underground, with their own unique fashions - e.g., those tall, fuzzy
top hats inspired by Dr. Seuss's famous cat.

Well, raves are mainstream, now, aren't they? They're advertised
online and frequented by jocks and sorority girls as well as social
deviants. Recently a young woman whom I'm tutoring interrupted our
SAT-prep session to tell me about her love for raves. I noticed that
her emphasis was entirely upon the thrill of loud beats and flashing
lights - as if a rave were a visual and tactile representation of the
global-consumer economy, oriented toward pure sensation and the quick
fix.

I'm aware that I sound like an old curmudgeon here ("Well, back in my
day, when people did X ."); younger readers might give me some
well-deserved criticism.

But the politics of another fashionable drug, cocaine, are deeply
messed up from any perspective. I think Woody Allen had the right idea
when, surrounded by expectant, pleasure-seeking noses, he wrinkled his
own and sneezed the stuff all over the living room.

Of course I've often felt troubled, politically, by my marijuana use:
Here I am in the comfort of my apartment while unfortunate people are
incarcerated for selling it to me. That's a form of hypocrisy, and
it's led me to donate money to the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml).

I admit that's not much, but it's something. By contrast, it's hard to
imagine making a political virtue out of snorting coke. My impression
is that habitual users simply don't care that they're indirectly
wreaking havoc in Mexico and Colombia.

A significant portion of the people who enter Ph.D. programs in
literature seem to come from wealthy backgrounds. So it makes sense
that over time, glossy designer drugs would predominate. Maybe it's
inevitable, but I find the trend disturbing.

A lot has been written over the past decade about the corporatization
of the university and the subordination of a liberal education to
business efficiency. The drug usage of scholars in the humanities may
be an indication of that shift. I fear that we'll have finally,
irrevocably, lost the culture wars when the humanists are doing the
same drugs as the M.B.A. students.

So we have our work cut out for us. At this point, I should emphasize
that my opinions in no way reflect those of The Chronicle.

That said, remember what Nancy Reagan told you when you were very
little? Here's my version: When someone offers you hard drugs, Just
Say No and fire up a bong instead. While you're at it, join NORML.
Together we'll resist the soulless forces of materialism and corporate
conformity.

And maybe someday I'll be able to write a column like this under my
real name.

Tom Quincey is the pseudonym of a Ph.D. candidate at a research
university.