Marijuana and It'S Legality: A Near Reality or Up in Smoke?
Marijuana and It'S Legality: A Near Reality or Up in Smoke?
Marijuana and It'S Legality: A Near Reality or Up in Smoke?
UP IN SMOKE?
By: Laika A. Hernandez
5
Tackett, Brittany. “History of Marijuana.” August 17, 2018. Available from:
began to play on the fears that the public had about these new
citizens by falsely spreading claims about the “disruptive
Mexicans” with their dangerous native behaviors including
marihuana use, the rest of the nation did not know that this
“marihuana” was a plant they already had in their medicine
cabinets.6 Simply put, the demonization of the cannabis plant was
an extension of the demonization of the Mexican immigrants. In an
effort to control and keep tabs on these new citizens, El Paso, TX
borrowed a play from San Francisco’s playbook, which had
outlawed opium decades earlier in an effort to control Chinese
immigrants.7 The idea was to have an excuse to search, detain and
deport Mexican immigrants... that excuse became marijuana. This
method of controlling people by controlling their customs was quite
successful, so much so that it became a national strategy for
keeping certain populations under the watch and control of the
government. During hearings on marijuana law in the 1930’s,
claims were made about marijuana’s ability to cause men of color
to become violent and solicit sex from white women. This imagery
became the backdrop for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 which
effectively banned its use and sales.8 While the Act was ruled
unconstitutional years later, it was replaced with the Controlled
Substances Act in the 1970’s which established Schedules for
ranking substances according to their harmfulness and potential
for addiction.9 In South Africa, Cannabis or Marijuana was wholly
criminalized in 1928 under the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act,
for political and moral reasons.10 They painted the drug—and the
communities using it—as a threat to the already crippled country
and began the process of banning it.
<https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/20/17938358/marijuana-legalization-
decriminalization-states-map> Accessed December 1, 2018.
12
Loc. cit.
13
Miron, Jeffrey A. “The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Legalization in
Massachusetts.” August 2003. Available from
<www.changetheclimate.org/bustudy/mass_budget.pdf>. Accessed November 29, 2018.
14
Perrie Stewart. “New Study Finds Alcohol Damages Your Brain More Than Weed.”
February 13, 2018. Available from: <http://www.ladbible.com/news/interesting-news-new-
study-finds-alcohol-damages-your-brain-more-than-weed-20180213> Accessed December
3, 2018.
15
NIDA. (2018, June 22). Marijuana. Retrieved from
<https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana on 2018> December 4,
2018.
16
WHO Report: Smoking and Drinking Cause Millions of Deaths Worldwide. Retrieved
from: <https://drugfree.org/learn/drug-and-alcohol-news/who-report-smoking-and-
drinking-cause-millions-of-deaths-worldwide/> Accessed: December 4, 2018.