As a practicing psychiatrist on the front line of treating patients with drug abuse problems I find myself totally befuddled by the current nationwide movement to make the “prescription” of the marijuana plant legal for a variety of medical ailments. To make matters worse, it appears that the medical marijuana movement is a veiled attempt at eventually legalizing the use of marijuana. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to the development of the active ingredients of the marijuana plant, the cannabinoids, into bona fide scientifically tested medications approved by the FDA or the European equivalent overseas. The cannabinoids have tremendous potential to therapeutically address a spectrum of medical ills. I am certainly in favor of getting the federal government to go full speed ahead in supporting such medication development.

So how to explain the current medical marijuana political environment? To answer this, I believe that we have to take a psycho-historical approach. Psychohistory refers to the attempt to understand historical events and movement based on a psychological analysis. For those that want to learn more on this topic I refer you to the writings of Robert Jay Lifton, MD, the American psychiatrist who has been a major contributor to the field. His research for example, tried to provide an explanation for the Nazi doctors who actively participated in mass genocide during World War II. How could exceptionally educated, bright, allegedly moralistic physicians voluntarily become complicit in such horrors as documented at Nuremberg? Without going into detail, Dr. Lifton provides a psychological explanation for this conundrum.

To return to our current discussion, providing a psycho-historical explanation for the marijuana movement requires a short trip back to the 1960’s and 1970’s. If you recall, this was a turbulent era in the history of the United States. It was an era reeling from the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Watergate and Nixon’s resignation and last but not least the Viet Nam War. Such events are best viewed as societal traumas, inflicting a lasting psychological impact on our nation’s psyche. What was the net result of such Psychotrauma? Reviewing this era recalls vivid memories of sit-down strikes aimed at the military industrial complex, riots on college campuses, popular slogans like “make love not war” or “turn on and tune out.” The latter slogan reflected the explosion of marijuana and psychedelic (LSD et al) drug use. It is my contention that the widespread drug use/abuse of the time represented a societal psychological defense against the emotional pain of the cumulative effects of the events listed above with the Viet Nam war the straw that broke the camel’s back.

So this brings us back to the present time and the medical marijuana movement. The past 25 years has been marked by economic near great depression collapse, September 11 2001, the subsequent wars in Iraq Afghanistan with its resultant human toll, the U.S. Congress’s apparent inability to avoid partisan politics, and the ongoing rise of militant Jihadi Islamism culminating in ISIS. As in the 1960-1970 era, I believe that we are back in a “turn on tune out” societal mode that represents an attempt to cope with our 24/7 constant media exposure to traumatic events. It is as if our society is taking the path of least resistance choosing altered psychoactive mental states to the reality of our current world politic. I am providing this psycho-historical perspective in an attempt to provide a more rational understanding for the medical marijuana movement.

If this psycho-historical analysis of the current movement to liberalize marijuana use turns out to be correct, our nation’s maladaptive attempts to deal with a turbulent time in our history may have grave consequences. I fear that our society may pay a heavy price including but not limited to escalating use, abuse and addiction, further deterioration of our educational capabilities, motor vehicle accidents, a less motivated workforce and a social fabric that becomes more and more indifferent to the important issues of our country and the world. Only time will tell.