CHAPTER 3: Marijuana

History of Marijuana Use

Marijuana was introduced into Micronesia during the late 1960s, most likely by Peace Corps volunteers. The early history of the drug in one Micronesian island is outlined by a local author:

It is said that marijuana was first introduced to Chuuk by a foreigner who resided on Nama Island toward the end of the 1960s. The person is reported to have had in his possession some marijuana seeds which he sowed and which later grew into healthy plants. By the early 1970s there was a small amount of marijuana filtering into Chuuk. The substance was bought in by students from Palau, Yap and Saipan who were attending school in Chuuk. As early as 1973 marijuana seeds were brought in from Saipan by a sailor on one of the cargo ships. They were planted on one of the lagoon islands and grew to be extremely healthy plants. It was not until the late 1970s that marijuana invaded the islands in large quantity. With much improved means of communication and transportation, and the increased number of Chuukese leaving the islands for school, marijuana found new and effective means of entering the area. (Oneisom 1991:2)

Smoking marijuana caught on among Chuukese in the middle 1970s when large numbers of college students returned, bringing back the drug to share with their friends (Larson 1987:219). During the late 1970s the habit spread rapidly among young males. By the early 1980s marijuana was being widely grown in Chuuk, as in Yap and Pohnpei. Cultivation of the crop was often a family project, with even older women contributing to the business and demonstrating a surprising knowledge of cultivation techniques. According to a survey of marijuana dealers conducted by Oneisom in 1985, dealers admitted to making about $100 in an average week. Police files show that during the five years between 1979 and 1984 $105,000 worth of marijuana was confiscated in police raids. This presumably represented but a small percentage of the total value of the marijuana produced during these years (Oneisom 1991).

We may assume, in the absence of any information to the contrary, that marijuana use in the Marshalls began around 1970 and rapidly became popular among island youth during the following decade. Yet, it never appears to have become as widely used there as on the high islands of FSM and in Palau, probably because the plant could not be easily cultivated in the coraline soil of the Marshalls. Any marijuana that was smoked had to be imported, and importation was expensive and became increasingly risky as customs surveillance was tightened.

A police raid made on Pohnpei in 1988 resulted in the seizure of 2,000 marijuana plants with a street value of over $1 million (Wood 1991:46). Such extensive cultivation would have been impossible in the Marshalls.

Cultural Background

Marijuana, like other drugs, is used socially in Micronesia. What Larson reported witnessing in Chuuk during the early 1980s would seem to be equally applicable to other parts of Micronesia.

Generally marijuana is smoked by groups of young men, about fifteen to twenty years of age, who gather in a secluded place. Though less common, groups of young women may also smoke regularly. A men's house is an ideal smoking place, but normal residences are also used if few people are around. After dark, smokers may sit circled in a yard or along the shore. Little ceremony surrounds the smoking event itself. Those who smoke together are usually relatives or close friends. Smoking may take place at any time of the day or night although most users prefer to smoke shortly after dark, about six o'clock, and finish later in the evening, about nine o'clock. Daytime smoking is usually of shorter duration and lasts no longer than an hour. Once a joint is lit, each smoker inhales deeply and holds the smoke in as long as possible while passing the joint on to the next person. No stigma is attached to anyone who refuses to smoke. Casual conversation may occur, but the passing of the joint commands the attention of those smoking....

The number of joints smoked during any one session varies considerably. One factor determining the number of joints smoked is the reliability of the source of marijuana. If smokers are accustomed to a daily supply of pot, they tend to smoke less in one sitting. If their supply is more sporadic, they tend to smoke whatever they acquire at once. Smokers' life experience is another factor determining the amount of pot smoked. Those who have never smoked outside Truk (Chuuk) tend to smoke more in one sitting and are less likely to save marijuana for the future. This style of smoking reflects Trukese attitudes toward consumption generally. Whether the activity is eating, drinking, smoking, making love, etc., the ideal is that one should continue until the effect is felt as fully as possible. The purpose of eating and drinking (nonintoxicants) is to feel full. The purpose of drinking intoxicants is to get drunk. With marijuana, the more one smokes, the higher one can get. Hence, the goal is to smoke as many joints as possible at one time. (Larson 1987:221-222)

Survey Data on Marijuana

General Prevalence Rate by Sex

The 12-month prevalence rate of marijuana use for the general population of the Marshall Islands (15+ years), as presented in Table 3.1, is 1.3%.

The marijuana prevalence rates, like those of other drugs, are strongly gender-linked. The male rate (15+ years) is 2.1%, while the female rate is 0.5%. Hence, the male rate is almost four times greater than the female rate.

Although the female prevalence rate for marijuana in the Marshalls (0.5%) is comparable to that in the FSM (0.8%), there is a wide disparity in the male rates in the two countries. The male rate for the Marshalls is much lower than that found in the FSM in the course of a similar survey (Micronesian Seminar 1997); the male rate of 2.1% for the Marshalls is just one-seventh of the FSM male rate (15.1%). The Marshalls rates, as derived from the data for this survey, are well below the rates registered in earlier studies of the FSM or some of its states. They are much lower still than the figures from a study that Jeanne Edman completed in 1980 indicating that 34% of all college students in FSM, the Marshalls and Palau smoked marijuana (Edman 1980).

General Characteristics

Age.
Marijuana use is more common among young men in their 20s than in any other age group, as Table 3.2 indicates. A few boys begin in their early teens, with the rate rising slightly in the late teens (15-19) before peaking in the 20s. The rate descends sharply in the 30-44 age group, after which no use is recorded in the older age groups. This pattern of marijuana use by age in the Marshalls closely resembles follows that of the FSM except that use of the drug in the latter does not cease entirely in the older age cohorts.

Marital Status.
As Table 3.1 indicates, marijuana use among single persons (2%) is higher than among married persons (1%). One possible explanation for this finding is that unmarried persons tend to be younger, and it is among the young that marijuana use is concentrated. Table 3.3, which corrects for any age bias by narrowing the age range to 20-44, confirms the correlation between marijuana use and single marital status. As the table shows, the rate of marijuana use among single persons aged 20-44, at 2.1%, is somewhat higher than that for married persons (1.5%). The difference in use rate by marital status is even more pronounced among women: 1.4% of single women use marijuana by comparison with 0.3% of the married.

Employment.
The rate of use among those without salaried employment is slightly higher than for those who have a paying job. The figures are not statistically significant, the more so in view of the very small numbers. A recent survey in the FSM showing a reversal of the correlation, with the use rate of employed males double that of those without jobs, should caution against exaggerating the significance of unemployment in occasioning drug use (Micronesian Seminar 1977).

Educational Status.
The rate of marijuana use among students, aged 15+, is presented as 0.3% in Table 3.1, but this rate was based on a single user. Table 3.4 draws on the school-age population, aged 10-19, to provide a sharper contrast between the drug use of in-school and out-of-school youth. The rate among out-of-school persons is many times higher than the use rate of those who are attending school. This finding, which tallies with a similar conclusion from the FSM drug/alcohol survey, establishes that marijuana use, like alcohol use, is strongly correlated with educational status among the young.

Ethnicity.
The survey sample showed very little marijuana use in non-Marshallese ethnic communities, as Table 3.1 indicates. There was none found among Asian or other Pacific islanders, and only one person among US/Australian citizens living in the Marshalls. Perhaps the only significant finding here is that the prevalence rates discussed in this chapter have not been distorted because of heavy use by other ethnic groups, for marijuana users in the Marshalls are almost entirely ethnic Marshallese.

Residence.
Not surprisingly, the population centers of Majuro and Ebeye show higher rates than the outer islands. The male rates (15+) for Majuro and Ebeye are 2.4% and 2.3% respectively, while the male rate for the other atolls is 0.7%. Marijuana use, then, seems to be a relatively rare occurrence in the outer atolls of the Marshalls. Of course, in any comparison by residence, as in other comparisons made here, the small number of marijuana users is bound to cast doubts on the statistical significance of the findings.

Other Drugs.
The concordance of marijuana use with alcohol use is complete in the Marshalls: 100% of marijuana users (N=25) also drink alcohol. This again confirms the hypothesis long maintained by social scientists and social workers that drug use in Micronesia is additive rather than substitutive.

Consumption Patterns

Frequency.
Table 3.5, showing the frequency of marijuana consumption, indicates that none of the current users are reported to smoke more than once or twice a week, with almost half smoking only an average of twice a month and another 24% smoking less than once a month. This is in strong contrast to findings in the FSM, where nearly half the drug users smoke daily. Those women who use the drug in the Marshalls tend to smoke more frequently than males, it appears, for 80% smoke once or twice a week.

Quantity.
Table 3.6 shows that males smoked a little less than an average of 2 joints on any day that they smoked, while females smoked an average of 2.2 joints. The average number of marijuana cigarettes smoked per day by the population using this drug was about 2. This is fewer than the average smoked daily in any of the states of the FSM, where the daily consumption ranged from 2.3 to 4.2. Hence, not only is marijuana is smoked less frequently than in the FSM, but fewer joints per sitting are consumed.

When the frequency data are computed against the average number of marijuana cigarettes smoked daily, it appears that the average Marshallese marijuana user smokes an average of 65 joints a year. This compares favorably with the FSM, where the average user smokes between 355 and 860 marijuana cigarettes yearly, depending on the state (Micronesian Seminar 1997:48).

Total Estimated Marijuana Use

When the survey sample is adjusted for age and sex to correct for over- or under-representation of any age-sex cohort, we may project the number of current marijuana users in the Republic of the Marshalls. As shown in Table 3.7 below, the estimated number of users at the time of the survey is 390, with 75 females among them.

Based on the number of projected users and the average number of joints smoked in a year, residents of the Marshalls consume about 25,000 marijuana cigarettes annually. To put this in another perspective, this quantity would be the equivalent of a four-day supply for the marijuana smokers in Chuuk State.