Writing Homework Help. Marijuana and The Origins of Mexicos War on Drugs Discussion
I’m stuck on a History question and need an explanation.
Readings:
- Campos, Homegrown (excerpts)
- Walker, Drugs in the Western Hemisphere, Ch. 5 & 11 (41-45; 64-77)
Reading Questions (Answer one set of questions):
1. How does Isaac Campos explain the appearance of numerous reports of marijuana madness in Mexico in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century? What evidence does he offer to support his argument? How does the idea of marijuana as a “psychotomimetic” drug fit into his explanation of marijuana madness? Do you find this argument convincing? Explain.
2. According to the 1972 marijuana commission report (Walker, Ch. 5), how did social attitudes towards nonmedical drug use change in the early twentieth century, and why drugs like opium and marijuana fail to achieve the social legitimacy of alcohol and cigarettes during by the 1930s? How did Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra’s views of marijuana (Walker, Ch. 11) diverge from the conventional views in 1930s Mexico and the United States? What kind of drug control strategy did Salazar support when he became head of Mexico’s Federal Narcotics Service in 1938? What was his rationale for supporting this strategy, and how did counter-narcotics agents in the U.S. perceive it as a threat to their own efforts to suppress drug trafficking?
