Reefer Madness Caribbean Style

Bibliographic Data

ID5834269
AuthorsHymie Rubenstein (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume30
Issue3
Pages465-497
Publication date2000-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Drug Issues (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0426 • E-ISSN: 1945-1369
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/002204260003000301
OpenAlexW2403315169
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited27

Reefer madness," a spurious psychiatric affliction that was widely promulgated in the United States during the 1930s, is rarely mentioned today as a possible sequela of acute cannabis consumption. Because reefer madness (RM) was questioned and generally dismissed in the West by the 1940s, I was surprised to find that it was still widely accepted as a genuine psycho-pharmacological affliction in the Eastern Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the 1990s. This paper describes and analyzes the reasons for this discontinuity between the West and the Rest by referring to the multiplicity of factors supporting the Vincentian RM syndrome: a generalized tropical "intellectual backwardness" and associated moral apathy; the real and alleged behavioral-psychological effects of acute cannabis ingestion; the peculiarly Caribbean character of Vincentian RM and the way it differs from its American counterpart; the types of people promoting the affliction; the larger anti-marijuana context that Includes opposition to any involvement with the substance; and, most importantly, the national system of racial and class stratification

Backwardness · Opposition (politics · Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Psychedelics and Drug Studies

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