In this Language•n•Justice conversation, I chat with Symone Varnado, founder and CEO of Merp, a cannabis company with a social justice mission. We talk about the framing of cannabis over its history in the U.S.,  the significant and lasting effects of the War on Drugs, and how negative associations carry over from marginalized groups to the things they are associated with—like dialects, and also like cannabis. Learn more at merp.page and stay tuned for their official launch on 4/20!

REFERENCES

Frontline. (1998). Busted — America’s war on marijuana. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html

Human Rights Watch. (2000). Punishment and prejudice: Racial disparities in the War on Drugs. Human Rights Watch 12(2). https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/usa/index.htm#TopOfPage

Lopez, G. (2016, March 23). Nixon official: Real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon

Olimat, S. N. (2020). Powerful weapons: Dysphemism in Trump’s Covid-19 speeches. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies 26(3), p. 17–29.

Thompson, M. (2013, July 22). Code Switch: The mysterious history of ‘marijuana.’ NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuana

Vagins, D. J. & McCurdy, J. (2006). Cracks in the system: 20 years of the unjust federal crack cocaine law. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjust-federal-crack-cocaine-law