MLA:
Padgett , Tim. "Can Obama and Pena Nieto Clear the Marijuana Smoke?." 27 2012: 1. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. http://world.time.com/2012/11/27/can-obama-and-pena-nieto-clear-the-marijuana-smoke/?iid=gs-main-lead.
Padgett, T. (2012, 11 27). Can obama and pena nieto clear the marijuana smoke?. 1. Retrieved from http://world.time.com/2012/11/27/can-obama-and-pena-nieto-clear-the-marijuana-smoke/?iid=gs-main-lead
MLA:
Lee, Martin. "Victory for Pot Means BEginning of the End of Our Crazy Drug War." 8 2012: 1. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.
APA:
Lee, M. (2012). Victory for pot means beginning of the end of our crazy drug war. 1. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/08/victory-for-pot-means-beginning-of-the-end-of-our-crazy-drug-war.html
O'Neil, Shannon. "Column: Mexico isn't a gangland gunbattle." 25 2012: 1. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/25/mexico-obama-drugs-middle-class/1725841/.
O'Neil, S. (2012). Column: Mexico isn't a gangland gunbattle. 1. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/25/mexico-obama-drugs-middle-class/1725841/
Can Obama and Peña Nieto Clear the Marijuana Smoke?
With the voters in Washington and Colorado legalizing marijuana, Martin A. Lee argues that the war on pot may be over—and good riddance to decades of bad science, scare-mongering, and harsh laws.
Residents of Colorado and Washington made history on Election Day by voting to legalize the adult use of marijuana. For a country punch-drunk on decades of anti-marijuana hysteria, it felt like a momentary jolt of sobriety. It might even go down as a long-term game-changer. The passage of Amendment 64 in Colorado and Initiative 502 in Washington could herald the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition nationwide.
From a historical perspective, marijuana prohibition is an aberration. For thousands of years men and women in many cultures have used cannabis as a curative and a source of fiber and oil. It wasn’t until well into the 20th century that U.S. legislators and their international counterparts imposed a global prohibitionist regime. How did this aberration come to pass and why has it persisted until now?
In the world according to Anslinger, marijuana was a deadly, addictive drug that enslaved its users and turned them into violent, deranged freaks. He rang alarm bells in segregated America by claiming that marijuana promoted interracial lust. Prior to the passage of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, which effectively banned all forms of hemp, Anslinger pounded home the message: white women are in mortal peril because of marijuana—and so are American children. His racially charged demonization of marijuana paralleled the rise of European fascist regimes that exploited fear and hatred of the Other.
Anslinger’s rabid fictions held sway in American society until the 1960s, when marijuana emerged as a defining force in a culture war that has never ceased. Adopted as the collegiate drug of choice, cannabis was no longer just a weed smoked by marginalized Mexicans and blacks. An illicit substance once confined to the lower socioeconomic strata in the United States suddenly found favor among millions of white middle-class youth. No single factor could account for why marijuana proved so attractive to large numbers of people on a continuing basis around this time. For young people seeking their own generational identity, cannabis was like catnip for a cat, a poorly understood but nonetheless efficient herbal means of navigating the ambient anxiety and frenetic complexity of modern life.
As the times changed and the social consensus around reefer madness crumbled, the arguments against marijuana shifted—the “killer weed” of yore morphed into the ’60s “drop-out drug,” which allegedly blunted ambition and stifled motivation, thereby causing users to detach from society. Anslinger’s outrageous lies about homicidal hopheads may have run their course, but misinformation and omission would remain major weapons in the federal government’s remorseless campaign against cannabis.
One of marijuana prohibition’s pernicious side effects was a baseline level of dishonesty and hypocrisy that America’s ruling class and much of its misled public could not get beyond. Government officials alleged that smoking weed causes cancer, brain damage, addiction, lower IQ, and psychosis, but scientific proof of harm remained elusive. Even if one didn’t believe all negative charges that were leveled against marijuana, the steady drumbeat of deceptions conveyed the overall impression that there must be something bad about the weed.
But Uncle Sam cried wolf too often: first marijuana was said to create maniacal killers, then to produce inert masses of lazy indulgers. When folks caught on that they weren’t getting the straight dope about marijuana, they grew increasingly skeptical of officialdom in general. Organized grassroots protest against marijuana prohibition, which started in the mid-1960s, would evolve into a widespread populist revolt against conventional medicine and extra-constitutional authority.
Main Arguement:
6:26PM EST November 27. 2012 - The neighbor Americans believe they have to the south, and the Mexico that has developed over the last 20 years, are two different places. As Mexico's incoming president Enrique Peña Nieto meets with President Obama this week, the biggest challenge facing relations today may be our skewed perceptions.
In Americans' psyches, drugs dominate. When advertising firm GSD&M and Vianovo strategic consultants asked Americans to come up with three words that describe Mexico, nearly every other person answered "drugs," followed by "poor" and "unsafe." Other questions reveal Americans see Mexico as corrupt, unstable and violent, more problem than partner. Americans had more favorable views of Greece, El Salvador and Russia.
These perceptions reflect the Mexican reality that dominates headlines: soaring crime rates and gruesome murders in a war against drug traffickers. But this window into Mexico overlooks an economic transformation and deepening ties with the United States that reflect a dramatically different country.
Canada on the Rio Grande
In the past two decades, Mexico has become one of the most open and competitive economies in the world, with trade to GDP (a common measure of openness) reaching 63%, surpassing both the United States and China. This trade is dominated by manufactured goods (not commodities), leading to a stronger and more diverse economic base than many of its emerging economy competitors.
Though the poll found that over half of Americans still see Mexico as a developing country, it is now a middle class nation. Over the last 15 years, Mexico's middle class has grown to encompass roughly half the population. These families own houses and cars, send their two children (on average) to the best schools they can afford and buy the newest products.
This transformed economy is also now profoundly integrated with the United States. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that imports from Mexico are, on average, 40% "made in America," far more than the 4% in Chinese imports. This back-and-forth of parts and products across the U.S.-Mexico border through the expansion of North American supply chains has been good not just for Mexico but also for the United States, revitalizing companies and supporting the jobs of some 6 million U.S. workers.
Mexicans are us
With all the recent focus on illegal immigration, people forget that there is a lot more linking Americans and Mexicans. In addition to some 5 million legal Mexican immigrants, there are 30 million more Americans who claim Mexican heritage. The Latino political heft, pushing President Obama over the top in many swing states, is largely Mexican.
If there is a silver lining in the poll results, its skewed view stems from the fact Americans do not know much about their neighbor. And we know it. Just as many of us admit we don't know when asked questions about Mexico as venture a positive or negative opinion. That acknowledgment from Americans provides an opportunity for newly elected and re-elected presidents, policymakers and businesses to fill that void with a fuller understanding of Mexican realities and the importance of our nations' growing together.
Shannon O'Neil is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the forthcoming Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead.
In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.
Main Arguement:
Main Arguement:
Column: Mexico isn't a gangland gunbattle
Drug war fuels news, while middle class blooms
6:26PM EST November 27. 2012 - The neighbor Americans believe they have to the south, and the Mexico that has developed over the last 20 years, are two different places. As Mexico's incoming president Enrique Peña Nieto meets with President Obama this week, the biggest challenge facing relations today may be our skewed perceptions.
In Americans' psyches, drugs dominate. When advertising firm GSD&M and Vianovo strategic consultants asked Americans to come up with three words that describe Mexico, nearly every other person answered "drugs," followed by "poor" and "unsafe." Other questions reveal Americans see Mexico as corrupt, unstable and violent, more problem than partner. Americans had more favorable views of Greece, El Salvador and Russia.
These perceptions reflect the Mexican reality that dominates headlines: soaring crime rates and gruesome murders in a war against drug traffickers. But this window into Mexico overlooks an economic transformation and deepening ties with the United States that reflect a dramatically different country.
Canada on the Rio Grande
In the past two decades, Mexico has become one of the most open and competitive economies in the world, with trade to GDP (a common measure of openness) reaching 63%, surpassing both the United States and China. This trade is dominated by manufactured goods (not commodities), leading to a stronger and more diverse economic base than many of its emerging economy competitors.
Though the poll found that over half of Americans still see Mexico as a developing country, it is now a middle class nation. Over the last 15 years, Mexico's middle class has grown to encompass roughly half the population. These families own houses and cars, send their two children (on average) to the best schools they can afford and buy the newest products.
This transformed economy is also now profoundly integrated with the United States. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that imports from Mexico are, on average, 40% "made in America," far more than the 4% in Chinese imports. This back-and-forth of parts and products across the U.S.-Mexico border through the expansion of North American supply chains has been good not just for Mexico but also for the United States, revitalizing companies and supporting the jobs of some 6 million U.S. workers.
Mexicans are us
With all the recent focus on illegal immigration, people forget that there is a lot more linking Americans and Mexicans. In addition to some 5 million legal Mexican immigrants, there are 30 million more Americans who claim Mexican heritage. The Latino political heft, pushing President Obama over the top in many swing states, is largely Mexican.
If there is a silver lining in the poll results, its skewed view stems from the fact Americans do not know much about their neighbor. And we know it. Just as many of us admit we don't know when asked questions about Mexico as venture a positive or negative opinion. That acknowledgment from Americans provides an opportunity for newly elected and re-elected presidents, policymakers and businesses to fill that void with a fuller understanding of Mexican realities and the importance of our nations' growing together.
Shannon O'Neil is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the forthcoming Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead.
In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.
Main Arguement:
