[Note: I am taking this diary out for a test ride Friday night. It is long and involved and I want to get some feedback prior to relaunching it again on Monday. Thanks.]
I recently wrote a diary in which I revealed that I was the subject of a federal drug investigation back in the 1980's while employed at a nuclear power plant. In this diary I wish to add a bit of background that was missing from that diary, and raise some issues which I believe are both timely and crucial to our country's future. To have a better understanding of this diary you might wish to read the first half of the diary linked above.
I see what happened to me as being part of what is so terribly destructive about the war on drugs, how it can be used selectively to punish people, not really for using drugs, but for speaking out against powerful people. This is part of why authoritarian systems thrive on morality-based rules. As John Lennon said, "Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey." As long as you toe the line you're OK. Piss off the wrong people and you're screwed.
Let's Dance! Put on your lead boots and jump the fold ...
First let me make something perfectly clear. I LOVE marijuana. I make no apologies about this to anyone. The only significant problems I have ever seen caused by marijuana were related to its legal status, not to its effects on consciousness or health. Furthermore, my own experience of marijuana is that it contributes significantly to my personal capabilities and intellectual/creative productivity. I also believe that this holds true for many people who use marijuana - particularly those who choose to use it on a regular basis. And while I've heard and read the retorts of anti-marijuana drug warriors who claim that the enhancement effect of marijuana is just a stoner delusion, I have seen and produced tangible results time and again which put the lie to their claims.
Early use of marijuana and a surprising discovery
When I was younger I, like many people, bought into the belief that marijuana makes you unable to think clearly. After all, I knew that alcohol certainly made it tough to think clearly. And since pot was illegal and makes you feel funny, it MUST make your thinking unclear also. Meanwhile, my high school in the mid 1970's was pretty much a haven for small time drug dealers and users. There was a blind wall at the end of the school - three stories high and about 100 feet wide, solid brick with not a single window. This was the location of the daily pot party during lunch break. On any given day that wasn't raining there would be upwards of 30 students there smoking cigarettes and/or marijuana. I also had musician friends who mostly spent their school time skipping classes and smoking pot in the woods, or in the parking lot in PJ's van. This was the culture in that place in time.
My own participation in the side of the school smokers' lounge was typically tobacco only. I was a serious student, honor roll type, I was taking a full course load with maxed out science and math and didn't think that getting high during school was a very good idea. [I am also what some might refer to as an exceptionally gifted individual. I'm one of the people who got 99th percentile results across the board in standardized tests in school - which at least means that I test well ... I also took an involved, several hour IQ test a few years ago - mostly to test the effect of more than 30 years of pot smoking. It reported that my IQ had risen from the low 130's in 1975 to 140 in 2004.]
So anyway, on occasion I would join in if the timing seemed right - no tests looming, no heavy subject matter to wade through, etc. One day in the spring of 1973 it seemed like a perfect day to catch a good buzz at lunch. My biggest challenge after lunch was English class and though we were supposed to have a test that day on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the teacher hadn't made it in to school and so I figured no test.
When I got to English class still nicely floating along I discovered that the substitute teacher was giving us the test anyway. "Oh Shit!" So I'm working on the first part which was T/F and multiple choice, and feeling a bit more confident as I find the answers mostly coming to me. Then we get to the essay part. There were a number of questions from which we could choose one to answer. As I read the first question it was as though I saw the entire answer flow into my brain in a flash. Though I forget the exact wording, the gist of the question was something like, "In the play, Shakespeare refers to Caesar, Brutus, and Marc Antony as all being honorable men. Given the conflicts between these men how could this be so. Provide examples."
I didn't even bother looking at the remaining question choices, I just started writing. It was almost like taking dictation. I wrote about how each of these men had taken actions that were consistent with their truly held beliefs even in the face of those who opposed them vigorously. I then gave examples from the play which illustrated my point for each of the characters involved. When we got our graded tests back the teacher was handing them out one by one and making occasional comments. At one point she paused and mentioned, "You know, as an English teacher it is very frustrating to grade an essay and not be able to deduct a single point." Then she returned my test. I wasn't surprised though as I knew that my essay was perfectly attuned to the question asked. (What I failed to realize then was how this essay question would come to dominate my life in multiple ways.)
I had a similar experience with a term paper I wrote for my advanced physics class. I was having severe writers' block when I decided to relax and catch a buzz. Within minutes the project was flowing for me. This same experience continued in college. Any time I had a large writing project I ended up attacking it with a steady supply of bong hits and Coca-Cola - coffee in later years. I also discovered that material I studied high I was able to best recall while also high. With this personal insight my testing performance improved noticeably.
How marijuana enhanced my computer programming capability
The first time I saw this marijuana enhancement effect play out in computer programming was while working at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda as a co-op student lab technician. I was tasked with writing an interface program in 8080 assembly language tying an analog to digital converter card to a microcomputer. I had done a bit of assembler programming at school but had always been stoned while doing so. It was kind of fun, like a math puzzle. But this project was a struggle. Then I caught a cold and ended up working from home for a couple of days. This also allowed me to get stoned while I was working. I had the finished assembler code with me when I came back to work. After entry and some minor debugging it worked. This piece of code was roughly 100 lines of assembler instructions. My boss at the time had meanwhile been mentioning how well his son was doing as an assembler programmer, averaging between 7 and 8 lines per day. Now granted, this project had taken a few days prep time to learn the application and plan how to approach the programming task, but even considering all of that I was able to generate far more code than 8 lines a day - AS LONG AS I WAS ABLE TO GET HIGH.
The specific way getting high helps with programming and other complex tasks seems to relate to information organization and retrieval. When I am high I can hold a sort of map of the entire project in my consciousness. Using this map I am able to move through levels of organization at will, diving into detail to write a lower level module while being able to easily shift my focus to the big picture. This enables me to ensure that the new code is consistent with the rest of the structure and will properly integrate and interact. And in many cases, much like the Julius Caesar essay, I am able to see large sections of code in a flash of inspiration and then simply dictate the lines into my program file. It is almost as though that faulty short term memory that is so derided in pot smokers is the result of those brain structure being used for other purposes - like possibly holding the organizing information that makes this process possible. I have often analyzed and reflected upon this process. This is what I've come up with to date. If interested you can read other accounts of people's use of marijuana for a variety of creative endeavors on Dr. Lester Grinspoon's Marijuana Uses website. One, titled Mr. X, was written by Dr. Carl Sagan of Cosmos fame. He was a lifelong marijuana smoker and his widow was active in marijuana law reform.
Now, an aspect of my upbringing and the general attitude of the times comes into play here. I was raised to essentially accept the cynicism and hypocrisy of day-to-day existence in America. Growing up this meant, "Don't get caught because then we'll have to punish you. We know you're going to do stuff that we'd disapprove of and that could get you in trouble, but as long as we never find out about it then all is well." I had already recognized that smoking pot made a huge difference in my productivity and ability to achieve exceptional results. I also had grown accustomed to keeping this reasonably well hidden due to the legal status of pot, but not to the point of paranoia because the times had been changing through the late 70's and it seemed like legalization was on the foreseeable horizon.
I become a nuke worker
I graduated from college in the spring of 1980 with a BS in physics and began looking for work. I hadn't spent too much time considering what I wanted to do or where I wanted to work, I just wanted to do something that made good use of my talents and abilities. I knew that I was intelligent and capable of out-performing most people in matters that required focused thought and concentration - and much more so with the aid of marijuana. Through whatever quirk of fate, an old friend from freshman year had become an engineering employment recruiter. I needed work and he needed people for jobs he was trying to fill. My first real job interview was on Three Mile Island with a gentleman named Bill Hamilton. At this point in time the accident at unit 2 was only a year and a few months in the past, and it seemed like an exciting and adventurous place to work. I also had no significant negative attitudes towards nuclear power and when the offer was made I took the job.
My first few months were spent in a trailer on the island taking a course in real time process control computing concepts. Between the formaldehyde from the trailer walls in the summer sun and the dry aspect of the material I frequently found it difficult to stay awake in the afternoons. This was something I'd grown accustomed to in college. I would not be able to keep my eyes open. My ears never shut down though. And when it came time for testing, the courses I'd slept through were the ones in which I most excelled, and in a few cases broke the curve on the up side. Regardless of this fact, my drowsiness became an issue and I had to meet with the training supervisor for a formal tut-tut. I explained my history with this but could see he wasn't convinced. at the same time, I was able to explain to him what it was that we'd been studying during the time in question.
To the Jersey shore
Anyway, I think this may have helped management in their choice to transfer me to New Jersey for my full time employment - I think they didn't want the drowsy guy at the high-profile location. And so in September 1980 I started working at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Forked River, New Jersey. When I joined the department they were in the process of staffing up for a few projects that were imminent. But in the meantime it was my chance to get up to speed on the systems already in place and work on a couple of special projects. I was able to quickly make myself useful, and contributed a few plant-specific modules to an ongoing development project for core management software being developed under a grant from EPRI - the Electric Power Research Institute. I was also falling into the local social flow, and had made a few friends that I had identified as stoners - just as they had identified me - buddar if you will.
I also made a decision ... that getting stoned for work was an honorable choice. I based this on knowing that my performance was far stronger on pot, that what I'd achieved in college - and by extension the basis for my hiring - had been done using pot, and that the need to keep it secret was simply because society had its collective head stuck up its collective ass regarding the effects of marijuana. Of course, this had to be confined to morning and lunch time. I certainly wasn't ballsy enough to actually bring drugs on site. This was still an operating nuclear power plant with high chain link fences and security at the gates and badged entry through manned security with metal and explosives detectors. There was always the possibility of a pat-down search too so bringing anything in was never a consideration. And besides, even if I had sneaked something in, where was I going to smoke it?
Even so, being able to start the day with a buzz and then refresh at lunch was sufficient to fuel a good bit of my efforts and I was able to progress fairly quickly with promotions and raises. It was also during this time that I started to use cocaine. I had tried it a few times in college but had never had the money to be able to afford more than a tiny amount at any given time. But unlike marijuana, I recognized that cocaine was not at all a good work drug. It had the opposite effect as that of marijuana despite being widely viewed as a stimulant. I can best describe this using musical analogies. Programming is somewhat like Bach, very deliberate, structured, planned and laid out - marijuana is quite conducive to this state. Cocaine, OTOH, is conducive to beebop jazz - fine for extemporaneous jamming but too abstractly scattering for logic and structured thought. (And besides, as is the nature of cocaine, the relatively small amounts I was buying were never enough to last beyond the weekend. In fact, they were typically never enough to last beyond Saturday night - those of you who know of what I speak need no further explanation.)
There were also a few other young professionals at work with whom I partook each of these drugs in social situations. I was also introduced to speed around this time. And while I tried it on occasion, I by far preferred cocaine to speed. And while I understand that things have changed significantly since that time, I recall that speed was mostly an issue with the body-shop radiation techs.
These folks were contracted through vendors to provide radiation monitoring support services - particularly during outages. Their jobs generally involve surveying, sampling, testing and monitoring of radiation and radioactive materials. If there is maintenance to be performed on a component, they will first do a survey of the work area to identify any radiological hot spots - areas to be cleaned prior to, or avoided during, the work procedure. Then during the actual maintenance work they will be monitoring the radiation levels continuously, making sure there are not any significant and unexpected changes and protecting the crew from unnecessary exposure. They also do general routine testing and monitoring at various locations around the plant.
These workers are generally young gypsies. They travel around the country from plant to plant to support operations during maintenance and refueling outages. There is a very real temptation for them to use speed and other stimulants because it allows them to work longer hours collecting premium hazardous work pay while it's available. People working several weeks in a row doing "six tens" - six ten hour days a week - was not uncommon. Then the outage would be over, they'd be on the road with hopefully enough in the bank to last them until their next outage. And given that nuclear plants try to avoid scheduled outages during the summer when electrical demand is higher, there is not always enough outage work in the summer to keep them all employed.
I would hope that in the past twenty-five years the industry has been able to curtail this particular drug use. Much like my own drug use, I got the impression from those I knew who were involved in this culture that they believed they were acting honorably even though illegally. But at the same time, I could see that it was physically wearing on them. I also had the impression that management turned a blind eye to this circumstance because it suited their purposes. They could contract for fewer people and work them longer hours. It also seemed hard to believe that some of the Shift Supervisors weren't aware of this problem. At the same time, it was not something that caused an elevated danger to the public at large. But rather, in addition to their own health, this could have affected the health and safety of the fellow plant workers, mechanics, welders, steamfitters, etc., these techs were there to protect.
I strongly believe that plant management allowed my circumstances to be known in the plant rumor mill in part as a way to protect other drug users there from exposure and investigation. It is also quite possible that upper management within GPUN was aware of my marijuana use prior to this incident in 1985. [There is much more to this story, but this is all I can say about this matter publicly at this time.]
Why did it take me so long to report these things?
Though the nature of these events had become clear to me over time I always felt as though there was nothing I could do about them, at least not without causing myself a lot of trouble and likely having no other effect anyway. I chose to come forward now for a few reasons.
First, public attitudes and understanding regarding the effects of marijuana have advanced a great deal since the "Just Say No" days of the mid 1980's. I felt it might finally be possible to present my view of these events without being automatically assumed to be a drugged out loser by virtue of my marijuana use.
Second, I had and have very mixed feelings about exposing all of this. I truly believe that if mankind is to get out of the CO2 trap we've created we will need a robust nuclear power program as at least part of the answer. Had I raised these issues much sooner they could have been used by industry opponents to attack and slow progress. Now it is my hope that there is enough momentum that this information serves a different purpose - creating a better industry environment with respect to how drug use is addressed and handled.
Third, some of the things I have reported on in this process, though not publicly reported here, involve allegations of fairly serious criminal wrongdoing by an outside vendor. This is not related in any way to plant operations or safety concerns, but rather to some possibly illegal business practices. I have avoided speaking out on these issues for years for fear of far worse retaliation than what I have so far experienced. I recently decided it was time to take reasonable precautions and speak out.
Fourth, with Senator Jim Webb's commission on our criminal justice system being debated, I was incensed at news of Senator Grassley trying to take any discussion of changing our drug laws off the table. I am sending him not only links to these diaries, but also the detailed backstory information which is also being provided to the NRC, New Jersey Attorney General, Representative Markey, and a few other appropriate persons.
I also have an agenda in mind. I wish to raise awareness of the fact that marijuana, far from making people stupid, actually enhances many people's thinking abilities. Part of why I am as hardcore as I am about the freedom to use marijuana is because it works so incredibly well. I also know that I am far from the only individual to have this experience of marijuana.
Drug testing - counterproductive in most cases
It is my firm belief that employment based drug testing is a counter-productive scam perpetrated on the American people. It is by now well known that marijuana is the only drug that most testing is effective against. This is because the metabolites from marijuana remain present in the bloodstream for several days to weeks after a person last smokes marijuana. A person could easily be a regular user of cocaine, speed or opiates and not be detected in a drug screening as these drugs leave the system within a few days. This is particularly true of pre-employment testing. If you know there is a test coming you only need to stop snorting speed, heroin, or coke for a few days for it to clear your system. A regular marijuana user needs to refrain from using for a month or more to be certain of not failing. I guess an opiate addict might not be able to refrain long enough, but most opiate users are weekend chippers, not daily addicts.
At the same time, I was happy to read in the comments to my last diary that regular and random testing is now being done in the nuclear industry. And while it is unfortunate that a positive marijuana result is still grounds for dismissal, this does help to deter the use of speed on a day-to-day basis. This is a very good thing. And for certain jobs in certain industries I am not against testing of this sort. But the policies need to be based on the realities of these drugs and their relative effects and risks. Presently the policies are based on anti-drug myths and hysteria. And in many cases any finding of illegal drugs is cause for dismissal - not because of the effects of the drugs but simply because they are illegal.
The legalization of marijuana and a reality-based marijuana policy could go a long way towards lessening the negative effects of drug testing. Presently many employers are forced to reject people who test positive for marijuana both because it is illegal, and because their insurance companies require them to do so. This is simply not justified on the basis of the drug's actual effects. Far from creating an unsafe workplace, marijuana consumption might actually help contribute to an accident-free work place. I know, sounds like something only a "true believer" could say. But this is backed up by research results in multiple studies.
Pot and physical safety - ER visits and driving
A Swiss study in 2008 found that emergency room admissions decreased in a dose-dependent fashion for people who consumed marijuana. In other words, stoned people went to the ER less often than straight people. And REALLY stoned people went there even less often. There have also been a number of studies which show the effects of marijuana consumption on driving to be less than that caused by alcohol at the 0.08% Blood Alcohol Content level - the standard legal limit for per se drunk driving.
These effects were mostly found in the ability of the driver to remain centered in the lane of travel. The "standard deviation of lane position" was higher for marijuana smokers than for straight people, but comparable to drinkers with a BAC of about 0.04% to 0.05%. Having some knowledge and insight in this area I question whether this was even a significant sign of impairment. Marijuana smokers tend to be somewhat anti-authoritarian in their attitudes. They also tend to be game players. It would be interesting to see the lane position study's data be reanalyzed from the perspective of "optimum path." I suspect that rather than try to stay in the center of their lane of travel - the standard to which they were being held , the marijuana smokers in this study may have driven sort of like very slow Mario Andretti's - taking the inside line on curves to minimize the amount of turning required, stress on tires, etc. This is just a theory of mine, but if it were to hold true it would also mean that the driving impairment from marijuana smoking is really quite minimal. And this would be consistent with the results of statistical studies which find no correlation between accident causation and marijuana consumption.
What now - can we fix this authoritarian hell?
There is much that remains to be done. Despite great progress on the state level there are still far too many restrictions on marijuana use in the name of public safety. Workplace drug testing with no exemptions for medical marijuana use is still a problem most places. Likewise the issue of driving high continues to plague people who are otherwise legally compliant and do not represent a hazard on the road. The present circumstance even in relatively liberal places in the Pacific Northwest is that medical marijuana patients cannot legally drive unless they choose to skip their medication for several hours. I understand that in Oregon if you have smoked within the past 24 hours that is cause to administer a roadside sobriety test - the kind of balancing act that older people, the infirm, the overweight and the uncoordinated never have a chance of passing totally straight.
And while the drug warriors claim that this is about health and safety it is really about knuckling under to authoritarian control. I was reminded recently of how much our society has become blind followers of law and order authoritarianism. I was pulled over on an empty rural highway without a clue as to why. When the officer approached he told me that I had cut across the white lane boundary and then the center yellow lane boundary and then the white lane marker again when I had turned onto the road. I explained that as there was nobody coming it was much simpler to cut that line across the funky little angled turn. He was not impressed. Lane marker are to be OBEYED! (Virtually everybody I've seen make this turn does some variation of what I did - the cops probably do too.)
Funny. I thought the purpose of traffic regulations was to prevent accidents, not simply to give authoritarian cops excuses to pull people over. I'm certain that he knew why I did what I did. I'm also certain that he knew it was not in any way a safety hazard that I had done so. But I had crossed the lines. And even though this did not contribute to an accident or create any kind of danger to anyone, it gave him an excuse to turn on his lights and pull me over. We as a society have lost sight of why we have laws and become focused on enforcement of the letter of the law for the sake of enforcement.
There is a very fundamental unfairness in our legal system. This is especially true if you are poor. The war on drugs exacerbates this unfairness both in its design and in its execution. And if my experiences are any indication, the cynical manipulation is by intent. The investigation of me was incredibly overblown and inappropriate to the circumstances. They literally tried to set me up in a $35,000 coke buy. What was the purpose of this? What did this have to do with the fact that somebody told the plant that I smoked pot? If what I was doing was already illegal, (it was), then what was the purpose of trying to ensnare me in something much larger? This is not law enforcement, it is authoritarian thuggery. This had nothing to do with my drug use. It had everything to do with getting back at me for being a whistleblower, and doing all they could to discredit me prior to the Congressional Subcommittee hearing that my allegations inspired.
They didn't care if they destroyed me, my career, my aspirations. In fact, the worse they could screw me the better for them. Am I bitter? Yes, you're damn right I'm bitter. After being pushed out at Oyster Creek I was involved in a business startup. As cash reserves were running low, I worked solid 8-10 hour days every day from the end of January 1987 until early June developing a demonstration product. My partner worked almost as much despite having two young children and a marriage to attend to. We had a successful meeting with the financing partner we'd been wooing and it looked like the business was saved. And then after a week he backed out. I later discovered that he had spoken with my old boss and apparently been scared away from me. Yes, I'm bitter.
BTW - if ANYONE knows of work available for a 52 year old quasi-genius who adamantly and steadfastly refuses to pee for a job, please get back to me ... things are getting extremely tight. Thanks.