Cultural and Collective Interpretations of Marijuana Use Impact on Work and School Performance:
An Ethnographic Inquiry
Jan Moravek*, Bruce D. Johnson**, Eloise Dunlap**, Stephen J. Sifaneck**
*Fulbright Scholar, Charles University in Prague, **National Development and Research Institutes, Inc.
Contact: jan.moravek@gmail.com, johnsonb@ndri.org, 212.845.4500 USA
ABSTRACT
RESULTS
Objective: To compare users’ reports on how their cannabis consumption affects their
work and school performance with relevant cultural narratives.
Methods: Ninety-two regular blunt/marijuana smokers were interviewed in New York
City. A qualitative content analysis of the in-depth interviews was juxtaposed with mass
media content about the effects of marijuana use.
Results: Users reported positive effects in reducing work-related stress, energizing the
mind, or enhancing creativity. Negative effects included difficult concentration, memory
damage, lack of motivation or “laziness,” while dependence was rarely mentioned.
Some discussed preventing adverse effects and resultant job performance losses by
avoiding smoking before work or “controlling the high” while at work, yet others
depicted negative consequences as unavoidable.
Conclusions: Marijuana users spoke both in terms of mainstream cultural narratives
(the amotivational syndrome, irresponsible use), and in contrasting collective
narratives (glamorizing marijuana as having positive effects on work performance or
no relevant consequences, and constructing use as controllable).
Positive evaluations range from marijuana’s energizing effects to its role in concentration or
creativity to relaxation and stress relief. Negative evaluations are mostly concerned with
weariness, lack of motivation, and memory damage. Neutral accounts are of those who say
that the effects of marijuana on their work performance are insignificant, either because
their performance is satisfactory or because they do not place a high value on work.
Users’ roles become significant when marijuana’s effects are depicted as (potentially)
harmful. Those who talk about their active role often say they do not smoke at or before
work in order to avoid negative consequences, while “passive” users often talk about
negative effects such as procrastination or memory damage without doing anything to
alleviate them.
Table: Relationship evaluation and user agency in users’ accounts of the relationship
between marijuana and work performance
BACKGROUND
A cultural story creates and supports a social world by providing a general
understanding of the stock of meanings and their relationships to each other. It
represents the interests of conventional culture.
A collective story gives voice to those who are silenced or marginalized in the cultural
story. It helps particular social groups develop their group consciousness and
‘galvanize’ group members, and serves to resist to the cultural narratives about the ingroup6.
Cultural Stories: Irresponsible Use, Amotivation: Abundant analyses map out media
messages about substances. However, these studies often do not go deep into the
meaning of media messages. Some only count the frequency of portrayals of or
references to substances (e.g. 8), other studies distinguish between negative and
positive consequences (e.g. 1). Others7 reported that acute effects, the ways drug use
alters a character’s mental state (such as loss of the ability to think clearly) or effects
CONCLUSIONS: While some blunts/marijuana smokers report cultural stories about
on the physical health were often depicted among the consequences. A qualitative
pathological consequences and irresponsibility of marijuana use, others draw upon their
analysis of anti-drug PSA’s9 revealed one of their messages: marijuana impairs
own collective stories, emphasizing their own agency and constructing their drug use and
judgment and irresponsible behavior inevitably follows its use. In the 1960’s, marijuana
related harm to work and school performance as controlled. The example shows how a
became a symbol of the counterculture. It started to be described as a drug that
cultural story of marijuana's tranquilizing effects is reproduced in a passive, irresponsible
sapped users’ wills, destroyed their motivation, and turned them into passive, lazy
user's account (Infamous), while it is transformed into a controlled, responsible user's
4
drop-outs . The cultural story of decreased motivation and productivity has ever since
acccount (Taylor):
been followed and fuelled by a rich scientific literature on the amotivational syndrome.
Infamous: I feel slower. You know?
Resisting the Mainstream Narrative in Collective Stories: Controlled, Responsible
Mostly I forget to do some homework
Use: Pro-marijuana groups often offer alternative information concerning drugs that
till the end. [Yeah.] So you know, that’s
CULTURAL
CULTURAL STORY
takes adifferent point of view from those contained in the mainstream communication.
why I need a cut down on it. [Yeah, do
STORY
User's role:
you think you’re getting slower you
One of their main premises is that cannabis can be used responsibly. E.g., the
Marijuana effects:
Passive, irresponsible
mean?] Yeah. Day by day just
Decreased
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws5 features five “principles of
smoking, yeah.
motivation
responsible cannabis use”: (1) adults only, (2) no driving, (3) set and setting, (4) resist
Impaired
abuse, and (5) respect rights of others. NORML places emphasis on marijuana users’
Taylor: I think it affects you feel more
COLLECTIVE STORY
judgement
agency and challenges them to control their use and its possible detrimental effects.
tired and lazy (…) And being tired is
User's role:
not good at work (…) It's not like I
Ethnographic research has provided valuable insights into the interpretations of
Active, responsible
smoke before I go to work where I be
Abiding by conduct norms
marijuana users. Cannabis smoking has been described as an inherently social
high. I know people that do that. I
activity, governed by conduct norms and rituals that serve to prevent drug-related
can't do something like that because
2,
3
harm or discourage excessive/compulsive consumption patterns (e.g. ).
I'll get too lazy and laid back.
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METHODS: We have analyzed ethnographic data on marijuana-work relationship, extracted from
92 semi-structured interviews with blunts/marijuana users in New York City, collected during a fiveyears-long ethnography entitled Marijuana/Blunts: Use, Subcultures and Markets. Answers to the
following open question form the basis of this poster: “Since our first interview, do you think your use
of marijuana/blunts has affected your performance at work/school? If it has, tell me how”.
SELECTED REFERENCES
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the National
Institute on Drug Abuse (1R01 DA/CA13690-05), by the Fulbright Commission Czech Republic, and by
National Development and Research Institutes. Points of view and opinions expressed do not
necessarily reflect the positions of these funding organizations nor National Development and Research
Institutes. The authors have no financial relationships related to the topic of this presentation.
5) National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). 2007. Principles of responsible
cannabis use. Retrieved March 20, 2007, from http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3417.
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