Meditation and Marijuana
MOHAMMED SHAFIL M.D.1,
RICHARD LAVELY 2, , and
ROBERT JAFE 3
1 Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104
2 Medical student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
3 Premedical student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Using a questionnaire survey, the authors sought to discover the effect of meditation on their subjects' use of marijuana. While only' 15 percent of a nonmeditating control group had decreased or stopped their use of marijuana during the preceding three months, among the meditators proportions ranging from half to three-quartens (depending on the length of time since their initiation) had decreased or stopped their use during the first three months after initiation into meditation. The authors found that the longer a person had practiced meditation, the more likely it was that he had decreased or stopped his use of marijuana.
