In 1937, the Federal Government issued the Marihuana Tax Act, a piece of legislation championed by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and its director Harry J. Anslinger. A year later, the popular mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, commissioned the New York Academy of Medicine, the leading public health advocacy organization in the state, to scrutinize the Marihuana Tax Act with evidence drawn from sociology, psychology, medicine, and pharmacology. Published in 1944, the La Guardia Report, as it came to be known, ultimately discredited the premises behind the new legislation, sparking immediate criticism from Anslinger and the FBN. Ultimately, LaGuardia Report had little effect on the decriminalization of the plant.
Your task is to analyze this particular case when efforts at medicalization, industrialization and criminalization clashed. Use LaGuardia Report as your main source, and support your analysis with your notes from lectures, required readings and movies, and supplementary materials of your own finding.
Some specific questions that you could explore are (THESE ARE SUGGESTIONS; DO NOT TRY TO DO THEM ALL):
What aspects of the global history of cannabis were emphasize to frame the research problem?
Did they cite other countries as examples or cautionary tales?
Can you identify similarities with other cases of medicalization, industrialization, or criminalization that we have studied? If yes, how can you explain those similarities?
Which were the social sectors involved in the problem and how were their risk factors conceptualized?
Was the plant studied in relation to other drugs or medicines?
Which were its medicinal value and industrial uses stressed or downplayed?
What were the sources used? How, where, with whom did they collect information?
What were the solutions in terms of policy recommendations and who should implement them?
What were the governmental or civic sectors called into action and to do what exactly?
Who were the people involved in this project? What was at stake for them?
Who was Fiorello LaGuardia? What were his politics and ideological interests? Why did he invest his political capital and the city’s money in a project like this?
The report and lecture notes and readings are attached below. When using lecture notes, cite them (Ex: Lecture #8), when citing readings, use in text citations as well.
Details:
Your paper must be around 2,000 words (5-7 pages approx., depending on spacing). You only have space to dive into one or two aspects. Find your own point of view and build an argument upon it.
It must have a title, an introduction, and a conclusion.
When looking for supplementary sources of your own finding, make sure they are reliable.
Cite your sources. Include an in-text citation in parenthesis at the end of quotations, or at the end of the sentence that paraphrases the cited source.
For lectures: (Lecture #8)
For required and supplementary readings: (Guba, pp. 14)
For required movies: (USDA, 2:19 min), or (Gasnier, 5:45 min).
For materials of your own finding, same format applies.
You MUST include a “Works Cited” section at the end. No need to include lectures, citing them in parenthesis is enough. For everything else, follow the format of citation in our syllabus.
For materials of your own finding, please do not copy and paste URLs, use proper citation. Follow the format of citation in our syllabus.
