Hashaholics

Aside from opium and its derivatives (heroin and morphine), no drug has had a worse press than hashish. The resinous extract from the flower heads of female Indian hemp plants (Cannabis saliva) is five to ten times as potent as bulky, unrefined marijuana. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land brought back the tale that the chief of a Moslem sect used hashish to give fanatical courage to his hirelings before they set out on murder missions. Thus, from a corruption of hashshashin, they added the word assassin to the language. What has since been learned about hashish suggests that while the crusaders may have been good fighters, they were rotten reporters. More likely, the bloodthirsty sheik, if he ever existed, gave his men hash after, not before, their exploits, during a period of rewarding rest and recreation in a perfumed garden peopled with houris.

Now, for almost the first time in a millennium, doctors have made a scientific study of the effects of hashish on a large body of men who were not professional criminals or chronically undernourished or otherwise disadvantaged. During the three years beginning in September 1968, Major Forest S. Tennant Jr. and Major C. Jess Groesbeck, at the U.S. Army hospital in Wurzburg, West Germany, had an "accessible, defined population" of 36,000 G.I.s, and a questionnaire indicated that no fewer than 16,000 of these had used hash at least once. The drug was more readily available than marijuana, and thousands of men were on it consistently enough to be dubbed "hashaholics" by their buddies. Of these, 720 presented themselves voluntarily, or were sent in by their commanding officers, because of resulting medical problems.

The most striking finding was the range of hash usage: most of the men smoked it, usually in a pipe, at a rate equivalent to the consumption of three or four reefers a day, one to three times a week. They achieved a marijuana high and suffered nothing worse than a "hash throat," with no obvious mental aftereffects. More than 100 others smoked from 2 oz. to 20 oz. a month, the equivalent of 500 to 5,000 marijuana cigarettes. These heavy users, say the doctors in the Archives of General Psychiatry, were in a "chronic intoxicated state marked by apathy and lethargy," that kept them from functioning in their normal jobs. They apparently felt no impulse toward violence or mayhem. In fact the drug induced a condition of general torpor. Another group of 115 heavy users had severe psychotic (schizophrenic) reactions; of them, only three had stuck to hash exclusively, while 112 sought to enhance their highs with multiple drugs--hashish plus alcohol, LSD (acid) or amphetamines.

When the hash-only users were weaned of their habit (it is not a true addiction), they showed no lasting ill effects, but nearly all of those who went in for multiple drugs had to be returned to the U.S. for psychiatric treatment. In sum, the Army doctors conclude, hashish may induce a severe, long-lasting mental illness in individuals who are predisposed to schizophrenia, especially if it is used simultaneously with other powerful drugs. Some of the effects may resemble those that result from physical damage to the brain. In any case, heavy use leads to severe lung damage. While moderate hashish use by normal individuals has nothing to commend it, the report suggests, the effects are neither permanent nor seriously damaging.

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