# Surprising mention of cannabis in a 1962 Philip K. Dick novel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [December 31, 2023, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402 "2023-12-31T10:12:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/1 "2023-12-31T10:12:18Z")
For those who don’t know, the novel in question is _The Man In The High Tower_, a work of speculative fiction in which the Axis has won the second world war. To be honest, this one didn’t really grab me the way I thought it would, unlike some other books with a similar premise, for instance _It Can’t Happen Here_ and _Fatherland_. I remember having the same issue with Dick when I used to read a lot of sci-fi as a teenager. Anyway, in this world where Japan and Germany rule the western and eastern United States respectively, marijuana is completely legal. People can buy “marijuana cigarettes”, I guess, anywhere they would buy ordinary cigarettes. Likewise they can smoke them anywhere smoking is allowed, or just about anywhere in 1962. The author never goes into any underlying reason for why the occupying forces allow cannabis, or why it’s mentioned at all. If it’s the Axis attempting to keep the populace mellow and content, it’s never mentioned. More to the point, marijuana wasn’t a “thing” that the general public thought or knew much about. I do think people knew vaguely about it in the 1950s and early '60s, as It does come up in some police procedural shows of the period. But the era of marijuana as widespread in youth culture was years away when the novel was written. Certainly, hardly anyone was thinking about legalizing it in 1962. Maybe Philip Dick was trying to tell us he liked to hang out down at the local jazz club, where the house band sometimes shared a joint with him? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/2 "2023-12-31T10:34:14Z")
Marijuana use was more common in the U.S. in 1962 than you think, as is suggested in this article that claims Kennedy used it in the White House that year: > **[A story about JFK explains the dangers of smoking weed in the White House](https://www.businessinsider.com/story-of-a-president-smoking-weed-in-the-white-house-2015-2)** > > Suppose the Russians did something now? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/3 "2023-12-31T10:44:11Z")
Cannabis as an intoxicant was well established in certain subcultures by 1930. Common wisdom seems to suggest that it got its foothold when people needed a substitute for alcohol during Prohibition. In these jazz clubs, it wasn’t called marijuana, it was called reefer. The name marijuana wasn’t common in the US until it was applied by puritan prohibitionists; outside jazz culture, it would have been known as cannabis or hemp (in a less-intoxicating strain) before then. The prohibitionists found the name “marijuana” (or marihuana) in part of Mexico, so they borrowed it to make it sound foreign and scary, and they deliberately associated its use with Black subcultures as a way of further tarnishing its reputation. That happened in the mid to late 30s, as I recall. I have no explanation for why Dick chose to have the Axis powers legalize consumption of the plant in the book, but awareness of it as a drug certainly precedes the novel’s date by decades. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/4 "2023-12-31T14:33:03Z")
Nazi laws could directly target racial groups without resorting to workarounds (like criminalizing pot) that leave a bogus veneer of equal rights intact. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/5 "2023-12-31T14:44:27Z")
It has been a while since I have read the book. However, IIRC, the cannabis was only legal in the Japanese controlled areas and not the Nazi controlled areas. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/6 "2023-12-31T14:50:42Z")
Do I recall correctly that in Robert Heinlein’s _Friday_, you could buy packs of marijuana cigarettes out of vending machines? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/7 "2023-12-31T15:23:43Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > More to the point, marijuana wasn’t a “thing” that the general public thought or knew much about. I do think people knew vaguely about it in the 1950s and early '60s, as It does come up in some police procedural shows of the period Absolutely it was known to the public at that time. There are plenty anti-marijuana scare films from the 1950s-early 1960s depicting the “horrors” of what happens when teens smoke marijuana. You aren’t going to make films scaring people away from something unless that is already a thing that is happening. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/8 "2023-12-31T15:38:15Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > There are plenty anti-marijuana scare films from the 1950s-early 1960s Much earlier. The most famous example is from 1936: > **[Reefer Madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness)** > > Reefer Madness (originally made as Tell Your Children and sometimes titled The Burning Question, Dope Addict, Doped Youth, and Love Madness) is a 1936 American exploitation film about drugs, revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana – upon trying it, they become addicted, eventually leading them to become involved in various crimes such as a hit and run accident, manslaughter, murder, conspiracy to murder and attempted ra... Saw it on campus in college where it was presented and received as a comedy. ---
**Author:** ![TheZenPaperboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@TheZenPaperboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheZenPaperboy)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/9 "2023-12-31T15:45:52Z")
Dick was a pillhead for at least ten years before that novel. He used uppers to help him knock out novels in a short time. I was not surprised to see the use of marijuana in the novel. Dick would have been aware of the drug scene from living in San Francisco and his own drug use. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/10 "2023-12-31T15:48:39Z")
Lyrics from West Side Story, circa 1960: Dear kindly Sgt Krupke My parents treat me rough With all their marijuana They won’t give me a puff. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/11 "2023-12-31T16:59:16Z")
I remember an old-time radio show where the villain (Played by William “Cannon” Conrad) was pushing marijuana to kids and saying “In ten years it’ll all be legal.” He got the timeline wrong, but the concept was there. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/12 "2023-12-31T17:03:25Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Dear kindly Sgt Krupke > My parents treat me rough > With all their marijuana > They won’t give me a puff. Those lines appeared both in the 1957 Broadway lyrics and the 1961 movie lyrics, as you can see in [Gee, Officer Krupke — West Side Story](https://www.westsidestory.com/gee-officer-krupke). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/13 "2023-12-31T17:10:03Z")
It might have just been introducing a few random differences from the present day, to drive home that it was a different time/world. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/14 "2023-12-31T17:19:14Z")
Hey come on you guys, everyone knows the hippies invented marijuana in 1967. (Sex too). ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/15 "2023-12-31T18:43:44Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I have no explanation for why Dick chose to have the Axis powers legalize consumption of the plant in the book, but awareness of it as a drug certainly precedes the novel’s date by decades. I didn’t mean to suggest that people were completely unaware of marijuana. After all, heroin was probably limited to an even smaller user subculture, but they knew what that was. But did people generally have an accurate idea of MJ’s immediate effects on the user? I’m not so sure; they’d been getting the Anslinger party line of pot-induced acmxe murders for thirty years. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/16 "2023-12-31T19:24:42Z")
True. Prior to 1967 we used a stork-based method of reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/17 "2023-12-31T21:32:25Z")
Hey, I was born in early 1968 and so was one of the earliest naturally delivered babies! (or is delivery by stork the natural method?) ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/18 "2023-12-31T21:53:59Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > IIRC, the cannabis was only legal in the Japanese controlled areas and not the Nazi controlled areas. Makes sense. The Nazis were, well, _Nazis_ about smoking. > **[The Nazis' Forgotten Anti-Smoking Campaign](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-nazis-forgotten-anti-smoking-campaign/373766/)** > > The Third Reich viewed tobacco as a threat to the health of the "chosen folk." ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/19 "2023-12-31T22:06:44Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > Saw it on campus in college where it was presented and received as a comedy. Me too. And I have a DVD with Reefer Madness and similar scare movies. The Gene Krupa Story, from 1959, starring Sal Mineo as Krupa, covers his pot use. > **[The Gene Krupa Story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gene_Krupa_Story)** > > The Gene Krupa Story (also known as Drum Crazy) is a 1959 biopic of American drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa. The conflict in the film centers on Krupa's rise to success and his corresponding use of marijuana. > The young Gene Krupa brings home a set of drums and puts them in the family room. His mother and three of his brothers stand by as his father makes it clear, as he has many times before, that he abhors the idea of Gene playing jazz drums. He says, "I have been too easy on my baby son," a... ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2024, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402/20 "2024-01-01T00:30:28Z")
This website is about the traditional use of marijuana in Japan: > **[The Secret History of Cannabis in Japan](https://apjjf.org/2014/12/49/Jon-Mitchell/4231.html)** > > Today Japan has some of the strictest anti-cannabis laws in the world. > Punishment for possession is a maximum 5 years behind bars and illicit growers face 7-year sentences. Annually around 2000 people [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-mention-of-cannabis-in-a-1962-philip-k-dick-novel/995402.md?page=2)