historyDr. Stanley F. Yolles, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, testifying before a Senate subcommittee, said, "A conservative estimate of persons in the United States, both Juvenile and adult, who have used marihuana, at least once, is about 8 million and may be as high as 12 million people."5 Other estimates have run as high as twenty to twenty-five million users.6 This vast increase in the number of people using marijuana seems to have begun in the early and middle sixties. It is likely that this new use pattern was initially precipitated by the publicity surrounding the LSD experimentation of Doctors Alpert and Leary at Harvard in 1963.7 As a growing segment of the academic fringe began to preach consciousness-expansion, students began to find marijuana available on campus. From that point the phenomenon snowballed. As more novice marijuana users reported no ill effects from its use, more students tried it, and in turn those who used and enjoyed the drug began to "turn on" those who had not. By 1970, some campuses reported that over seventy percent of the student body were users.8 More recently, marijuana use spread beyond the student subculture; reportedly its use has become common even among young professionals on Wall Street.9 Moreover, since it is readily available and widely used in Vietnam, marijuana has become popular with many soldiers
