Awesome quote...

[sarahmichelef]

My students are reading Howard Becker's classic 1953 study "Becoming a Marihuana User" (American Journal of Sociology 59(3):235-242) for class on Tuesday (we're doing the chapter on Deviance & Social Control).  And this is simply the most amusing quote ever... a new marijuana user, acting like he knows what he's doing...

I came on like I had turned on [smoked marihuana] many times before, you know.  I didn't want to seem like a punk to this cat.  See, like I didn't know the first thing about it... I just watched him like a hawk... Then when he gave it to me I just came on cool, as though I knew exactly what the score was.  I held it like he did and took a poke just the way he did (237).

Ah, that's some AWESOME 1950s slang, that is.