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From Killer Weed to Drop-out Drug: The changing ideology of marihuana
Abstract
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42611/1/10611_2004_Article_BF00808341.pdf
... When marijuana was associated predominately with minorities, popular stereotypes of both users and the drug's effects centered on aggressiveness and violence, but these stereotypes eventually shifted as perceptions of marijuana users changed (Campos, 2012;Himmelstein, 1983). In the 1960s and 1970s, marijuana became framed as an amotivational drug, and stereotypes of marijuana users as aggressive gave way to stereotypes of users as lazy, licentious, and dull. ...
... This shift in popular beliefs about marijuana occurred because the public's mental image of the drug's users came to include Whites. According to Himmelstein (1983), the "transformation from Killer Weed to Drop-out Drug involved a change not only in specific beliefs about the effects of marihuana use but also in the general images of the drug and its users" (p. 34). ...
Scholars have long argued that behaviors and objects associated with criminally stereotyped minority groups can themselves become stereotyped and criminalized, leading to increased punitiveness. Yet, this extended criminalization hypothesis requires theoretical development and direct empirical investigation. To address this issue, we seek to test the concept of extended criminalization, which posits that behaviors associated with racial and ethnic groups accentuate and aggrandize perceived threat of minority groups through a reinforcing process. We examine the extended criminalization hypothesis in the context of breed-specific legislation (BSL). Using data from a survey-based experiment conducted with a sample of young adults from two universities ( N = 525), we test the effects of racial priming on support for laws banning pit bulls. Findings from the experimental manipulation are supplemented with observational findings using measures of racial stereotypes of pit bull owners and breeders. Respondents in the treatment and control groups did not significantly differ in their likelihood of supporting BSL, and the same was true when analyzing Whites separately. The observational findings were consistent with the experimental findings. The findings do not support the extended criminalization hypotheses. Neither racial priming nor stereotypes of pit bull owners and breeders were associated with support for BSL. We outline additional avenues for research on the extended criminalization hypothesis.
... Com isso, práticas de vigilância e controle passaram a reger o modo de lidar com a população negra: qualquer negro era considerado suspeito (Macrae & Simões, 2003). É interessante atentar que a maconha, nos Estados Unidos, dita promotora de violência, a partir da década de 1970 passou a ser considerada perigosa porque seus usuários se tornavam apáticos, desistindo de suas vidas (Reinarman & Levine, 1997;Himmelstein, 1983). ...
As drogas se consolidam como um dos arquétipos culturais predominantes no cotidiano das sociedades urbanas, sendo sua presença ubíqua em praticamente todas as culturas. Os registros históricos apresentam ampla variabilidade de substâncias que em dado momento eram classificadas como o perigo social da época e que em outro se tornavam banalizadas ou tipificadas como inofensivas. Assim, esse estudo teve como objetivo analisar como dispositivo droga que se consolida em diferentes períodos históricos. Para isso, foram coletadas 4.227 matérias dos jornais Folha da Manhã, Folha da Noite e Folha de São Paulo, que abordassem questões relativas ao álcool (década de 1920), maconha (décadas de 1930 a 1960) e crack (década de 1980 a 2005) e realizada Análise Temática de Conteúdo. Os resultados permitem afirmar que a característica central que define todas as substâncias analisadas nos distintos momentos históricos é o risco social que ela apresenta. A droga se constitui como um risco aos usuários ao mesmo tempo que os institui enquanto uma figura de ameaça social. Ao se referenciar uma substância como uma droga, são ativados sentidos que remetem a um quadro de decadência e criminalidade.
... There has been a longstanding research interest in the relationship between cannabis and non-drug (i.e., interpersonal or property) crime (Abel, 1977;Himmelstein, 1983;Macleod et al., 2004;Pacula & Kilmer, 2003). Given the nature of its psycho-pharmacological effects on users, cannabis is generally less likely to lead to most types of crime since it reduces, rather than instills aggression, thus not generating the inter-personal violence commonly associated with alcohol or psycho-stimulants (e.g., cocaine) (Boles & Miotto, 2003;Chermack & Giancola, 1997;Homer et al., 2008;Moore & Stuart, 2005). ...
Cannabis control policies in a few countries have recently shifted from criminal prohibition-based regimes to legalization of use and supply. While cannabis’ newly emerging status of legality may suggest a coming “end” for criminology-based interest in the drug, these fundamental changes rather open a window to a new set of criminological research issues and questions, mostly focusing on cannabis use and related behaviors, and their relation to crime and justice. Based on a joint, personal record of several decades of criminological research on cannabis, we briefly review the rationale for five fundamental topics and issues of cannabis-related research associated with legalization. These include: 1) the deterrent effect of prohibition; 2) illicit production, markets and supply in a legalization regime; 3) use enforcement; 4) cannabis-impaired driving; 5) cannabis and crime. This constitutes an—albeit subjectively selective—“post-legalization” research agenda for a cannabis-focused criminology. Other possible areas of research focus or interest within fundamentally different paradigms of criminology (e.g., “critical criminology”) are identified and encouraged for development. Overall, the proposed research agenda for a post-legalization cannabis criminology should both contribute discipline-specific knowledge to improved cannabis-related public health and safety as well as allow for important debate and development in this evolving and important research field while entering a new (“post-legalization”) era.
... Com isso, práticas de vigilância e controle passaram a reger o modo de lidar com a população negra: qualquer negro era considerado suspeitoSIMÕES, 2003). É interessante atentar que a mesma droga, nos Estados Unidos, dita promotora de violência, a partir da década de 1970, passou a ser considerada perigosa porque seus usuários se tornavam apáticos, desistindo de suas vidas (REINARMAN; LEVI-NE, 1997;HIMMELSTEIN, 1983). da Folha da Noite, de 1947. ...
O uso de crack é uma pratica social largamente hostilizada no Brasil e objeto de intervenções variadas, envoltas de muita polêmica. Com exceção de alguns serviços e programas sociais, a questão tem sido tratada em desacordo ao que preconiza a política de saúde mental, sendo possível apontar um retrocesso nas conquistas alcançadas pela reforma psiquiátrica, com a adoção de um modelo manicomial. Um grande contingente de comunidades terapêuticas e clinicas particulares desenvolvem ações questionáveis no âmbito de um cuidado adequado e mesmo instituições como os Centros de Atenção Psicossocial (CAPS), modelo desenvolvido como contraponto à lógica asilar, muitas vezes terminam por promover a manutenção dessa ordem (ACIOLI NETO; AMARANTE, 2013). Diante desse quadro assistencial, questionamos aspectos de uma clínica construída para lidar com o assunto. Quando devemos intervir no consumo de crack? Quais as ações adequadas a essas práticas? A questão do uso de crack envolve uma série de particularidades que precisam ser destacadas antes de pensarmos em processos interventivos. Todo uso é problemático? Existe consumo controlado/funcional dessa droga? Qual a função desempenhada pelo crack na vida desse sujeito? Em que contextos de uso essa droga foi significada? As perguntas se estendem ainda em muitos aspectos e a proposta desse livro é contribuir na construção de um cuidado atento às particularidades simbólicas dessa prática social. Em outras palavras: como desenvolver uma clínica situada culturalmente?
This study aims to problematize current calls for a “public health” approach to governing illicit drugs and the people who use them.
It draws on a range of historical sources to describe how drugs became a problem for governments, in order to critically diagnose the present and investigate the origins of current perspectives on drugs.
It is argued that there are currently two authoritative drug discourses. The first discourse is the dominant one and is eradicative, with blame and punishment as its primary responses. The second discourse is subauthoritative, but growing in importance, and is sanitorial, with care and cure as its primary responses.
While these two discourses have often been thought of as distinct, this historical exploration demonstrates that the eradicative and sanitorial discourses are both based on similar principles.
In response to Australian media coverage that attributed violent attacks to steroids, a new law targeting androgenic anabolic steroids was introduced in 2014, reclassifying steroids as a narcotic and punishing illicit users with lengthy jail terms. Stereotypes about the users were imputed to be the drug's effects: when used by young men, steroids achieved symbolic status as a substance symptomatic of pathological masculinity, but when used by ageing men, steroids were portrayed as a benign medication helping those deficient in testosterone to achieve normality. While drug historians have shown how public images and policy around particular drugs have changed over time depending on the social locus of use, the case of steroids in Australia demonstrates how dual public images and policies can simultaneously coexist around a single drug, such that people use different nomenclature—‘steroids’ and ‘testosterone’—to describe identical substances. This article reports on ethnographic research conducted amongst Australian steroid users in 2013–2014, when laws were changing. While the new law symbolically marked steroid users in terms of excessive masculinity, both legal and illegal steroid users sought to distance themselves from the media's caricatures. Even as different people using the same set of drugs faced radically differing levels of access and legal risk, all used steroids for carefully designed projects of self-improvement and self-realization, not only to build high-performing bodies but also as elements in the crafting of disciplined, responsible, moral selves. Both legal and illegal users were connoisseurs of biomedical knowledge but while legal users of testosterone replacement therapy recruited biomedical authorities to their goals, illegal steroid users evaded biomedical authority and produced their own ethnopharmacological knowledge through self-experimentation. None of the users, regardless of the legality of their steroid use, believed that the new law targeted them.
An association has been found between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and violence in several clinical populations, including veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and there is evidence that CUD has been increasing among veterans since September 11, 2001. There is also evidence that some veterans may be attempting to self-medicate psychological problems including PTSD and aggression with cannabis, despite the lack of safety and efficacy data supporting this use. To date, however, the association between CUD and aggression has yet to be examined in a large, non-clinic sample of veterans. The present study examined the association between cannabis use disorder, anger, aggressive urges, and difficulty controlling violence in a large sample of Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans (N = 3028). Results of multivariate logistic regressions indicated that current CUD was significantly positively associated with difficulty managing anger (OR = 2.93, p < .05), aggressive impulses/urges (OR = 2.74, p < .05), and problems controlling violence in past 30 days (OR = 2.71, p < .05) even accounting for demographic variables, comorbid symptoms of depression and PTSD, and co-morbid alcohol and substance use disorders. Lifetime CUD was also uniquely associated with problems controlling violence in the past 30 days (OR = 1.64, p < .05), but was not significantly associated with difficulty managing anger or aggressive impulses/urges. Findings indicated that the association between CUD and aggression needs to be considered in treatment planning for both CUD and problems managing anger and aggressive urges, and point to a critical need to disentangle the mechanism of the association between CUD and violence in veterans.
The time has come for forthright consideration of a rapprochement between the humanist and social science concepts of culture. This is needed, not only to overcome one version of the "two-cultures" split, but also to provide a better theoretical foundation for the sociology of culture. It is argued that this outcome may be achieved in a theory that stresses (a) the psychic source of culture in the quest for person-centered meanings and authentic experience; (b) symbolic elaboration as a major resource for, and product of, this quest for meaning; and (c) the esthetic potential in symbolization as well as in consummatory experience. Thus culture is viewed as expressive symbolism and any social product, including language, contributes to culture insofar as it sustains symbolic experience. A proper theory of culture is normative in the sense that it permits diagnostic evaluation of both symbolism and symbolic experience.
One of the most groundbreaking sociology texts of the mid-20th century, Howard S. Becker's Outsiders is a thorough exploration of social deviance and how it can be addressed in an understanding and helpful manner. A compulsively readable and thoroughly researched exploration of social deviance and the application of what is known as "labeling theory" to the studies of deviance. With particular research into drug culture, Outsiders analyzes unconventional individuals and their place in normal society.
Issued also as no. 10 in the series of Reports, v. 3. "Report on crime and criminal justice in relation to the foreign born for National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, by Edith Abbott, with supplementary reports by Alida C. Bowler, [and others]"--P. 7. Includes bibliographical references.
MarihuanaMarihuana smoking seen as epidemic among the idle
- G R Mccormack
G.R. McCormack (1937), "Marihuana," Hygeia 15: 898-899; "Marihuana smoking seen as epidemic among the idle," Science News Letter 34 (1938):
MarihuanaMarihuana Hustlers, Beats, and Others, Garden CityMarihuanaThe Political Uses of Moral Reform: California and Federal Drug PolicyThe marihuana menaceMarihuana as a developer of criminalsPresent Status of the Marihuana Vice in the United StatesYouth gone loco
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- G Winters
- P Jaeger
- Selznick
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One more peril for youth
- H G Leach
H.G. Leach (1939), "One more peril for youth,"
Forum and Century 101 (January): 1-2.