Marijuana Social Threat the Social

Marijuana Social Threat

The Social Threat of Marijuana: How Blowing Smoke Led to Legislative Repression and Other Practical Problems

Marijuana, known by many names around the world and perhaps one of the world's oldest drugs, has only recently been the subject of intense legal and political scrutiny. Though it seems impossible to imagine, it was less than a century ago that marijuana became illegal in the United States, and initially it was only individual states that outlawed the substance (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). Now a federally controlled substance with dubious "medical" allowances in many states, marijuana and its use continue to be sources of extreme controversy amongst the public, lawmakers, and a variety of special interests. There are many negative consequences that are supposedly extreme problems that accompanies marijuana use, with accusations ranging from causing fatalities to helping to fund terrorism, while on the other side of the issue people clamor for compassionate use or broader freedom of choice.

In this sea of conflicting information and arguments, it can be difficult to determine which side of the marijuana debate is correct, or more correct. All that is really required to make a well-informed decision, however, is an objective and critical examination of the actual evidence compared with how the evidence and the substance has been presented. Such an examination of marijuana, in light of other controlled substance laws and relevant historical events and patterns, reveals that the supposed dangers of marijuana use are grossly overstated by many sources, and that the perceived threat is purely a social construct.

The Formation of Risk Perception

The modern perception of marijuana and associated risks cannot be understood as the result of a single isolated event, but rather is the combined process of decades -- nearly a century, at this point -- of ongoing information campaigns aimed at perpetuating the belief that marijuana is a dangerous drug associated with violent crime on a local and an international scale. The beginnings of this trend can be traced back to a more isolated event or series of events, however, beginning right around the time of prohibition in the early part of the twentieth century (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). All forms of intoxication were viewed with an increasing mix of mistrust and temptation during this period, and after alcohol was legalized again a pettern of finding a new substance to react to emerged and continued throughout the rest of the twentieth century (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). The first such substance was marijuana, and by the 1930s the substance had been vilified and made illegal throughout the nation, and has remained so (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009).

Some research suggests that the perceived threat of marijuana grew out of a reactionary movement spurred on by the Great Depression, which is also cited as being responsible for the end of Prohibition (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). Society sought a way to protect itself from the poverty and risks around them, and substance abuse seemed a likely culprit (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). While such "moral panics" are typically short lived, however, in the case of marijuana the perception of danger has been perpetuated (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994).

In the current era, research suggests that certain stigmas and preconceived notions that are associated with marijuana and its use are the primary impediments to legalization laws (Myers, 2011). While this is an indirect measure of the perceived threat that marijuana poses to communities and to society at large, it is a fairly good indicator of threat perceptions nonetheless, and this research is quite clear in establishing marijuana criminalization as arising out of a social impetus rather than out of an evidenced-based need or recommendation (Myers, 2001). With a public that is increasingly well-informed by news media through a variety of communication technologies and the level of evidence that marijuana is not especially detrimental to health, families, or social well-being (and is certainly less so than alcohol), it can only be that certain social stigmas and ongoing media campaigns are responsible for keeping marijuana feared and illegal (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009).

Specific elements of social makeup that have been identified as leading to greater fears of marijuana and a reduced likelihood of medical marijuana/partial legalization laws being passed include Protestant populations, minority (especially Black) populations, and elderly populations (Myers, 2011). Increases in any of these demographics is negatively correlated with polls in favor of partially legalizing marijuana use and possession, with the researcher's observations allowing some more detailed examination of the possible reasons, as well (Myers, 2011). Marijuana's association with violent crime and with a lax work ethic causes it to be more feared y Protestants and in communities with large minority populations, and individuals over the age of sixty-five are more likely to express disapproval or outfight fears of the drug and its potential to bring violence into a community (Myers, 2011). It is not that people fear the drug itself or its effects on them if they were to use it -- not a health concern, that is -- but rather that they fear what they have been told about the source of the drug, how it is traded, and the type of person that is associated with it.

Sparking Public Fears

If the feared associations and effects were actually demonstrated by empirical evidence, of course, then one could not argue that the marijuana threat was strictly socially constructed. That is, if there was a documented link between marijuana use and a lack of productivity, an increase in minority crime or violent crime, or any sign of economic depression/value shrinkage, then there would be rational and practical reasons to fear marijuana use and to make it illegal. By their very nature, socially constructed threats or "moral panics" are not based on such rational empirical evidence, so all one would need to do to justify the perceived threat of marijuana would be to empirically demonstrate any of the above-mentioned connections (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009; Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994).

Instead, even the perpetuators of the marijuana myths of danger can only vilify the drug through implication. Though moral panics used be to fueled by pseudoscience that could masquerade more effectively as the real truth, this is no longer the case to the same degree (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009). As an alternative, the parties that are used to fueling the panic against marijuana turn to loose accusations and implications without needing to provide concrete evidence.