Marihuana use is more than an activity: it is a culture itself

A culture is a group of people with a shared context and perception of reality. People in the same culture usually understand each other customs, language, and social practices. Within cultures, subcultures often exist. We have high culture, which is commonly thought of as attending art museums and participating in intellectual discussions of literature and low the (or popular) culture associated with popular music, reality TV and drugs.

Objects are critical to the makeup of culture – they both define and are defined by culture. Objects in culture are usually created by the people in the culture, and are often used to perform cultural rituals and provide some of the shared context that exists within cultures.

A culture would be no culture at all with out the subjects (or people) within that culture. The people within the culture are constantly redefining and changing the culture as they live in it by interacting with each other and objects of the culture.

In his article Howard Becker describes the culture that has to exist in order for marihuana use to occur and spread to more people. Objects that may have no significance to non-users have meaning to the subjects within the set of drug users. Marihuana users will become excited at the thought or sight of objects that lead to getting high. Because marihuana itself is not an neurologically addictive drug, there are a number of conditions that need to be met for someone to start using marihuana. New users nave to be trained to recognize the strange feelings they're having as being a high, that the feeling is good, and that they want more of it. Initially, users may be scared of the effects, or decide that they are downright unpleasant. Without guidance and assistance from existing users, the social addition to marihuana will not occur. While even though at the neurological level, subjects in the marihuana-using culture may not physically depend on the drug, humans do depend on culture to survive. If that culture involves marihuana, it becomes necessary to continue using the drug to remain in the culture.