Clinical and social aspects of marihuana intoxication.

Based on a paper read before the Continuing Education Program, Mendota State Hospital, Madison, Wis, Nov 6, 1969 LET ME assure the reader who may have a response to a presumptious title that what follows does not comprise any final view or comprehensive statement; in this case at least, the appearance is not the reality. Rather, my discussion proceeds from a particular point of view (or bias, if you wish) —namely, that of a psychopharmacologisl over 30 years of age, who has learned from experience that subjective effects of drugsie, changes in feelings and perceptions reported verbally by the subject—do not always correspond to the observable behavior manifested by the subject. When there is a discrepancy, the subject's observable behavior is the better prognosticator of consequences for his health and for the health of others in his social milieu. Consider the drunkard, or, to stray from psychopharmacology proper, consider the manic or schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. I am tempted, at this point, to stray even further and consider the general epistemological question of the validity of "direct" or "immediate" experience, unchecked by "objec tive" testing of logical consequences. This would lead us too far afield at the moment, but I shall return to it later.