Commentaries on Pedersen (2011): does cannabis cause poverty too? Moving beyond the malevolence paradigm.

摘要

The moral status of cannabis was transformed from medicine to vice in the early 20th century by claims about its malevolent consequences. In the United States, for example, a 1934 Bureau of Narcotics report claimed that 'fifty percent of the violent crimes committed by Mexicans, Turks, Filipinos, Greeks, Spaniards, Latin Americans and Negroes may be traced to the abuse of marihuana'. It quoted a narcotics officer: 'Marihuana has a worse effect than heroin. It gives men the lust to kill, unreasonably, without motive-for the sheer sake of murder itself' [1]. In the 1936 film Reefer Madness, a few puffs caused sexual assault and homicide. In 1937, Congress criminalized cannabis.