On Splendors in the Grass

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF GRASS by Jack S. Margolis and Richard Clorfene. 188 pages. Contact Books. $2.95.

The only thing remotely keeping pace with the weedlike growth of marijuana use in the U.S. is verbiage on the subject. What with books, magazines and talk shows, no man today is considered complete without an expressed opinion on grass. But little of the talk communicates a direct sense of what using pot is really like. How does it feel? What are the ways of getting high? How is grass obtained? This unpretentious little book, which has circulated in the pot subculture for the past four months and will soon be published as a regular paperback, comes up with just that sort of stone lowdown. It has something to say to those who have, to those who haven't but want to, and even to those who don't want to but would like to stay informed.

Authors Margolis and Clorfene, who are comedy writers and (they claim) nonusers, begin with the beginner and tell him what to expect. There is no initial kick or jolt from grass, they say, and "there is no way you are 'supposed' to feel." But among the feelings that may happen are a slow general euphoria, the discovery that everything is funny (even "your friend's teeth are a riot"), and a minute fascination with whatever little thing the smoker happens to be doing. Occasionally smokers are affected by a sense of paranoia, an inability to remember in the middle of a sentence what it was they were talking about, as well as loss of a sense of time. The smoker scurries to see what his date has been doing in the kitchen so long, "only to realize that she's been gone a minute and a quarter." Pot also enhances the capacity to appreciate everything, claim the authors, especially the "holy three"--food, music and sex. As they put it: "When you have a panacea, you have a panacea."

Obviously, Margolis and Clorfene are pot enthusiasts. Though they point out that the weed's long-term effects are still under hot scientific debate, the only serious dangers they discuss are legal.* But they do not puff the splendors in the grass in the old unwary Leary style. They state categorically, for instance, that "there is no such thing as a profound revelation while stoned." The book is not intended as a polemic; it is merely a report that, in addition to discussing the subjective feelings of being high, includes such how-to items as rolling a marijuana cigarette, cleaning an ounce of the stems and seeds, and making a buy safely.

There is a wealth of offbeat tips: don't hide your pot in a spice jar despite its resemblance to oregano, because everyone--even J. Edgar Hoover --knows that trick; to quintuple pot's potency, put it in a closed box with dry ice for at least 48 hours. For eating, which the authors contend is more effective than smoking, the simplest recipe is to fry one heaping teaspoon grass in dry pan for five minutes, then add two or three tablespoons heated honey, swallow and wait an hour. For many readers--especially nonusers--the greater value lies in the pleasant, almost grasslike aura that the authors produce. Despite a slightly overbreezy style and an occasional tendency to be cutesie-pie, their low-key approach and refusal to take the whole thing too seriously help support their main contention: that grass should be no big deal.

-Selling marijuana is a federal offense punishable by from two to 20 years in prison. In all 50 states, however, mere possession of the drug is a crime. On a first offense, it can be punished with a sentence ranging up to 25 years. Supporting legal prohibition is a 1969 presidential task-force report that asserts that the widespread use of marijuana represents a significant mental health problem.

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