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Positive and negative impact of legalizing cannabis
Effect of legalizing marijuana essay
Effect of legalizing marijuana essay
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“The film Reefer Madness was released in 1936, exaggerating the dangers of the drug to warn parents and children of cannabis use” ("Marijuana In America: history, culture and people," n.d.). “The first step to criminalizing the drug was 1937 Marijuana Act that put a tax on marijuana. In 1969, the 1937 Act was ruled unconstitutional, leading to marijuana being added to the Controlled Substance Act in 1970, making it outright illegal.” ("Marijuana In America: history, culture and people," n.d.). At Woodstock some reports at the time said about nine in ten people were smoking marijuana at the concert. Also in the 1969 movie Easy Rider two bikers take a road trip where marijuana was used ("Marijuana In America: history, culture and people," n.d.).
For over seventy years, marijuana has been a growing problem in our society. Due to all of the controversy over this drug, there have been countless battles fought concerning marijuana's capabilities. In the 1930's, a moral panic surfaced with regard to the use of marijuana. The movie Reefer Madness is a perfect example of how the media stereotyped and distorted this new drug in order to construct it as a social problem, convincing society that this narcotic was single handedly destroying humanity.
Before any federal law regarding marijuana was ever proposed, some of the States took it upon themselves to regulate the possession, distribution and consumption of marijuana based on racial prejudice against Chinese immigrants. Referencing law passed by the state of California in 1913 one physician observes that, “The 1913 law received no attention from the press or the public. Instead, it was promulgated as an obscure amendment to the state Poison Law by the California Board of Pharmacy, which was then pioneering one of the nation's earliest, most aggressive anti-narcotics campaigns. Inspired by anti-Chinese sentiment, California was a nationally recognized leader in ...
Marijuana in America became a popular ingredient in many medicinal products and was openly sold in pharmacies in the late nineteenth century (“Busted-America’s War on Marijuana Timeline”). The National Institute of Drug Abuse defines marijuana as, “The dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, which contains the psychoactive (mind-altering) chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as well as other related compounds” (“DrugFacts: Marijuana”). It was not until the Food and Drug act of 19...
A drug subculture involving the use of marijuana and other hallucinogenic drugs began to emerge in mainstream American society in the late ?60s and was loosely associated with an overall atmosphere of political protest concerning the Vietnam War and civil rights. Drug use, including heroin use, was prevalent among soldiers during the Vietnam War and many of them returned addicted. Since that time, the recreational use of drugs, particularly marijuana, has been a constant aspect of youth culture in all social classes.
$2,000 for drug possession and jail sentences for evasion of the tax. For this reason marijuana use in the United States appears to have gone into decline in the late 30's (Grolier Wellness Encyclopedia, pg. 54). Then marijuana was outlawed in 1937 as a repressive measure against Mexican workers who crossed the border seeking jobs during the Depression. The specific reason given for the outlawing of the hemp plant was it's supposed violent "effect on the degenerate races" (Schaffer, pg.
Jazz musicians, labor workers, and river boatmen were quickly taking to its euphoric effects (Gettman, 1995). Smoking marijuana also became more popular during Prohibition when more people began cultivation of the plant and importing it into the U.S. to replace alcohol (Doweiko, 2002). In 1942, marijuana was removed from the United States Pharacopoeia and the Federal Government began to criminalize non-medicinal marijuana possession and use (Carter et al., 2003). Marijuana became extremely popular in the 1960's and, today, is considered the most widely used illicit drug in the world, Canada, and the United States (Gettman, 1995). Pharmacology and Chemistry of Marijuana Cannabis is known to contain over 400 chemicals in which about 70 are classified as plant cannabinoids.
Crazy, Stupid, Love, a 2011 release by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra is a typical Hollywoodian exploration of relationships, primarily romantic with a labored start, positive and meaningful closing and a hilarious interim. The story of Cal, a simpleton striving through mid-life crisis takes a different spin as it combines with the second half of the plot - Jacob, a hedonist version of the super-charming Date Doctor Hitch in the eponymous film.
Marijuana used to be legal in the mid-1930s, “until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed by Congress” (Drug Legalization) . Congress passed this to make it illegal to have sold marijuana to anyone without having tax on the product (Drug Legalization). From that point on, marijuana was made illegal because of the few tax stamps that were being sold. During the 1970’s and the 1984’s, Congress was revoking laws that involved drug offenses (Drug Legalization). At the same time, the federal government was toughening the drug sales and possession laws (Drug Legalization). This has been going on for the past 80 years (Drug Legalization). Doctors then started to recognize the medical uses of marijuana (Rich). That made marijuana become deliberately sold in pharmacies (Rich). “The origins of marijuana prohibition in the United States stem from fears of a criminal element sneaking into the country, in t...
For nearly one hundred and fifty years marijuana has been illegal in the United States of America. Though marijuana naturally grew in all of our fifty states, it was outlawed due the superior strength and durability of hemp rope. This threatened to replace cotton rope, which would cost wealthy cotton owners a lot of money. To this day marijuana is still outlawed in the U.S., however rope has nothing to do with it. Once slavery and the “cotton boom” were over hemp made a little bit of a comeback in a smoking form. Then, in the early 1940’s the government began releasing anti-marijuana propaganda. In the 1960’s when marijuana became popular amongst pop-culture, a movie by the name of “Reefer Madness” was released depicting marijuana users as fiends and criminals who’s normal everyday lives fell apart, and spun out of control due to the addiction to the drug. Even in the present day organizations, as well as the government, continue to try and sway people from using the substance by portraying users as irresponsible idiots. Some examples of behaviors portrayed in the commercials are: accidental shootings, running over a little girl on a bike, molesting a passed out girl, supporting terror, and impregnating/becoming impregnated. I feel that these advertisements are ridiculously tasteless and misleading. Through personal experience, surveys, an interview, and a case study I intend to prove that marijuana users do not behave in the fashion that the anti-marijuana campaign ads would suggest, and furthermore, I expect to find that the ads so grossly misrepresent the common user, even those who do not use disagree with the negative portrayals. I also challenge you to think about the suggested situations and behaviors from the commercials, I feel that you’ll see every situation and behavior in the advertisements is much more feasible to a person under the influence of alcohol than under the influence of marijuana.
Many people in the show business used marijuana recreationally. This is when “Reefer songs” became the rage of the jazz ...
In the 1900’s, the use of marijuana skyrocketed and its abuse gained momentum. In 1937, the Marijuana Act placed tax on its purchase. Those who refused to pay higher taxes were criminalized (Wikipedia). In 1969, the Marijuana Act was told to be unconstitutional, adding marijuana to the list of controlled substances and one year later marijuana was made illegal. In 1970, the people of America stood up for marijuana, creating the group NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). Their goal was to convince America to decriminalize the use of marijuana for adults. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana in small non-medical ...
Marijuana is a fast-growing bushy plant with dense sticky flowers. It has been a part of our American culture for hundreds of years. It has been referred to as a poison, drug and narcotic. It is believed that marijuana was introduced by the Spanish in 1545 to Chile. In America the plant was first grown in Virginia and Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. It became a major commercial crop that was grown along with tobacco and was a source of fiber for fabric, rope and cloth. Later it was used to treat many health problems. During the 19th century many medical articles were written discussing marijuana’s value in treating conditions. The plant was considered legal from the 1600’s until the 19th century. Marijuana became popular in the mid-19th century and was in most drugstores through the beginning of the 20th century. It was around this time that recreational use of marijuana was becoming acknowledged. Marijuana has been illegal in the United States since the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This is a federal law that made the possession or transfer of marijuana illegal throughout the United States. This law was the precursor to the crimina...
It was 1920 when smoking began to catch on in the United States. Its recreational use was restricted to jazz musicians and people in show business. “Reefer songs” became the rage of the jazz world. Marijuana clubs, called tea pads, appeared in every major city across the country. Authorities tolerated these establishments because it was not illegal or considered a social threat. In the early 1930’s marijuana became stereotyped as a violent drug, and by 1936 was illegal in all states. Marijuana research was at a stand still and the thought of it being a violent drug faded and the idea that it was a gateway drug emerged in the late 1940’s early 1950’s. In the 1960’s marijuana became very popular among the young college crowd. This was looked at as a challenge to authority and the government.
Marijuana use and possession has been illegal across all states since the passing of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. However, its usage and abuse were relegated more to the minority populations and had little to do with most of mainstream America. Laws were in place to punish offenders and since most were minorities at the time, there was little to no sympathy for the sentences being handed out from the courts. The outcry from those in mainstream America didn’t come until the 1970’s during President Richard Nixon’s proclaimed “War on Drugs.” This followed a massive increase in drug use during the 1960’s. People blamed the music of the era, politics and mostly the war in Vietnam for the sudden spike in users and ultimately abusers. The difference was that this time it wasn’t just isolated to the minority communities. Educated Caucasian students and even professionals had begun to use drugs and were very open about it. Thi...
... “devil weed” causing violence sold newspapers, making him a very wealthy man. The combination of these two men thus started the war on marijuana. Only days before the 1937 marijuana hearings in which Congress intended to outlaw Marijuana on the federal level. The American Medical Association (AMA) realized that the natural plant Congress intended to outlaw was known medically as cannabis. Cannabis had been noted as the best medicine for more than 100 different medical illnesses and diseases from 1850 to 1937 in the US pharmacopoeia (The manual for treating illnesses with prescriptions). “Dr James Woodward, who was physician as well as an attorney, testified that there “wasn’t any real evidence being used to justify the new law”, and that the reason the AMA hadn’t come out against the law sooner was that marijuana was always described as a “killer weed from Mexico.”