Compared to other twelve-step programs, MA is in its infancy.  In June of 1989, delegates from three disparate marijuana support groups in Northern and Southern California met to establish a unified twelve-step program for marijuana addicts.  Fred, who has been attending meetings in Eugene since they began in February of 2002, later complains about how MA has to deal with problems an entrenched institution like Alcoholics Anonymous, founded in 1935, solved more than sixty years ago.  At AA, Fred says, dissenters can hide in the back.  While at MA, because the group is so small and so frequently attended by people who don’t want to be there, dissenters can ruin the experience for everyone else.  It doesn’t help former potheads rechristened as “marijuana addicts” to hear others say, “I don’t know…I don’t really think you can be addicted to marijuana.” At AA, a stubborn drunk new to the twelve-step program might deny being an alcoholic, but few would openly question the prevailing medical consensus that alcohol can be addictive.

On the subject of marijuana, medical science is less clear.  Studies of the effects of smoking marijuana have primarily been based on chronic, heavy users, not addicts, and the two groups may not be the same.  Studies show that heavy marijuana smokers suffer respiratory problems such as chronic bronchitis (much like heavy cigarette smokers), and some research supports subtle cognitive impairment in long-term heavy users.  But by and large, little research has been conducted to credibly convince the public that marijuana is all that bad for you.

And public health campaigns haven’t jumped into the fore, as they have with alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking and other health hazards.  Suburban mothers aren’t MADD enough at pot smokers to launch a national campaign against marijuana.  Sure, an occasional public service announcement will show a dad confronting his stoner son when he finds his stash, but then after the commercial break, Roseanne Barr, on re-runs, confiscates her kids’ marijuana and invites her friends over to smoke it in the bathroom.  Or, on Showtime, Prada-toting, latte-slurping mother-of-two Mary-Louise Parker deals weed in the ‘burbs to make her mortgage payments. And so, although clearly defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-VI), “Cannabis Dependence” still struggles for credibility.  On the MA Web site, one of the most frequently asked questions is still, “How can there be marijuana addicts if marijuana is not addicting?” 

But Fred knows marijuana addiction exists.  Betsy knows it exists.  Former Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury of Canada, the only name yielded by a Google search for “marijuana addiction AND celebrity spokesperson,” knows it exists. 

“We who are marijuana addicts know the answer to this question,” reads a statement on the MA website. “Marijuana controls our lives!  We lose interest in all else; our dreams go up in smoke.  Ours is a progressive illness often leading us to addictions to other drugs, including alcohol.  Our lives, our thinking, and our desires center around marijuana – scoring it, dealing it, and finding ways to stay high.” 

Fred, whose life is no longer controlled by marijuana, works at an independent music store called House of Records, a little blue house sitting next to an AM/PM parking lot near the University of Oregon campus.  He collects records obsessively.  In his early forties, he’s been clean for six years.  No coke, speed, alcohol, anti-depressants, pot –all the drugs he says he used to feel cool and to self-medicate for depression.  He doesn’t feel tempted to smoke anymore – just cigarettes, the hardest habit to kick – and can’t stand the smell of marijuana.  “It’s unpleasant,” he says, peering through large round glasses. 

That poses a problem where Fred works.  He can’t go to “listening parties” with his co-workers, in which everyone brings a record and smokes weed.  He occasionally has to ask a co-worker to move a bag of just-purchased “stinky pot” so he doesn’t have to smell it.  But the worst ones, he says, are the customers.  They smell like pot.  “It smells like it's coming out of their pores,” Fred says of a couple of the regulars, who are also growers.  “And they’ll spend 45 minutes to an hour looking at records.” 

If he wants to get out of harm’s way, Fred has picked a poor place – not just the music store but the city of Eugene and the state of Oregon all conspire against him.  Oregon was one of the first states to legalize medical use of marijuana, and legalization for recreational use has shown up on the ballot several times.  Eugene, a Mecca for hippies in the 60s and 70s and the final destination for Ken Kesey’s LSD-tripping Merry Pranksters, is a town where local college students regularly steal the signs for High Street, a downtown roadway.  According to the Associated Press, officials have had to replace the sign nearly 350 times in the last decade.  Eugene is one of 128 cities in the world (three of which are in Oregon) to participate in the Global Marijuana March to legalize pot.  Oregon is ranked in the top fifth nationally in marijuana use.