Many readers will be familiar with the story of America’s War on Drugs. As most of us know it, the story goes something like this. Following political upheavals in Mexico in 1910, large numbers of Mexicans immigrated to the US, especially to the Southwest. For predictable reasons, the immigrants became objects of contempt. They spoke […]
Author: Judith Stamps
Weedy Blues III: Silly Logic: Fun with Numbers
In 2001, in response to a court challenge, Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) was implemented in Canada, allowing patients to grow their own medicine. This law gave them a level of peace. But the federal government remained hostile to the idea, and so were a number of BC municipalities. In 2012, the peace ended. Health […]
Weedy Blues: The Ballad of Murder and Marijuana: Part Two
In Weedy Blues Part One, we looked in detail at how newspapers in Canada, especially in BC, have helped to create a contemporary spectacle: the “grow-op” scare. Based on content analysis provided in Susan Boyd and Connie Carter’s Book, Killer Weed: Marijuana Grow-ops, Media and Justice, we noted that elements of this scare included harping […]
Weedy Blues: Riffs on Marijuana and the Media: Part 1
Since the late 1990s, indoor cultivation of marijuana has been a constant focus of attention by the RCMP units that comprise the civil police for 62 out of 74 of BC’s municipalities. Through their reports, these units supply the crime information most heavily relied upon by mainstream media. In this way, they paint the portrait […]