Marijuana and the Counterculture

a few years more. As with so many things, time may largely straighten out the pot problems without much crusading effort. In most states and most campuses there is little interference from the cops any longer with discreet and civil use of marijuana. Some states are softening their laws, and more will doubtless follow. Judges and prosecutors and cops are learning more about pot. And it is possible that the significance of the whole pot issue is diminishing through a familiar American process. Mr. Cowan may have jumped on yesterday’s train. Pot—so at least it seems to me and a good many other observers—is going out of fashion. I know this is true at several schools with which I have direct acquaintance, and several college campuses. A Dartmouth colleague tells me that Dartmouth students have swung back to Dartmouth’s traditional beer. In the West this year the most rapidly spreading campus organization is the Society for Creative Anachronism. Its local chapters take names from a past time or distant place (San Francisco = The Renaissance; Tucson with the University of Arizona campus = Tuscany). Activities include baking contests, costumed charades and poetry reading. Yes, of course, the Society began at Berkeley. —James Burnham

I have only a few things to add to the excellent—and generically conservative—analysis by James Burnham.