Smoke signals : cannibas moral panics in the United States, Australia &amp; Britain
Creators: name: Cody, DL
Publisher: name: University Of Tasmania
Year: 2023

description: Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, Australia and Britain. It is also the drug surrounded by the most controversy. While the cannabis plant was once an innocuous plant present in all three countries, used as a reliable commodity and valuable medicine, its use as a psycho-active substance has seen the debate over the drug polarised between absolute fear and loathe, and its total acceptance as a harmless, recreational activity. This thesis investigates the condemnation and moral panics surrounding cannabis, and proposes that the discourse surrounding the drug has experienced four main phases: 'racialisation'; 'criminalisation'; `popularisation'; and, `medicalisation'. The first of these moral panics led to the racialisation of cannabis. The common recreational use of the drug by members of certain 'races', who were seen as inferior to the dominant, white, Anglo culture, was used as a target against them. Their use of cannabis, and the resulting legislation that was introduced as a reaction to their use, was employed as a form of control over these groups who were disliked for their differences. Racial minorities were again targeted in the criminalisation of cannabis, as were jazz musicians and sections of the white criminal class, and the drug was portrayed as having the ability to lead users to serious, violent crimes and perverse sexual acts. Legislation continued to be passed against the drug in the United States, Australia and Britain, even though only a small proportion of their populations indulged in the use of the drug. The popularisation moral panic occurred in the decade of the 1960s due to the rapid growth in the use of cannabis among large sections of the youth population. Instigated due to the fact that its use had become a popular recreational activity amongst white, middle-class youth, the moral panic suggested that the use of cannabis led to `antimotivational syndrome'. As a result of the popularisation of cannabis, users of the drug became differentiated subjects. The fourth moral panic surrounding cannabis was associated with the medicalisation of the drug. Harm minimisation was a key issue in this cannabis discourse, and legislation was changed to distinguish between sale and possession of the drug. More recently, the debate over whether cannabis is a cause of mental illness fits within the medicalisation discourse of the drug. It is concluded that, while there are both similarities and differences within the four cannabis discourses in the United States, Australia, and Britain, the moral panics that occurred have led to a distortion of the reality of the drug in each of the countries. While cannabis does not turn its users into serial killers, as once suggested, or irreversibly destroy their brains, it is a powerful intoxicant and ought to be a matter of public concern, if not moral panic. The issue is however, ' how the drug is used, and abused, not whether it ought to be used, and the media should be used to promote safe use of cannabis rather than creating panic over the drug.