the wonders of cheating

opinion, however, it was the association of marijuana with blacks and Mexicans that ultimately stigmatised the drug as a violent and addictive drug for the following thirty years. As Himmelstein concludes, "Because Mexican laborers and other lower class groups were identified as typical marihuana users, the drug was believed to cause the kind of anti-social behaviour associated with these groups, especially violent crime."5 It is in this period that we see the emergence of films such as Reefer Madness, which first use the dreaded term, "killer-weed."

Reefer Madness (1938) is an important film because it shows the blatant misrepresentation of the effects of marijuana. The story opens with an official speaking to a hall filled with concerned parents and teachers. The speaker warns of the dramatic rise, to almost "epic proportions", of the deadly addictive weed, marijuana. The speaker claims that this new plague cannot be underestimated, and the effects of the "killer-weed" may even be...