Political Science Social Policy
Not This Time
Canadians, Public Policy, and the Marijuana Question, 1961-1975
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2006
- Category
- Social Policy, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780802093790
- Publish Date
- Mar 2006
- List Price
- $49.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780802090485
- Publish Date
- Apr 2006
- List Price
- $83.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442658851
- Publish Date
- Dec 2006
- List Price
- $37.95
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
Drugs are part of every society, consumed for ritual or religious purposes, for pleasure, to enhance athletic performance, or as a means to relieve pain. Throughout the twentieth century, however, an arbitrary and shifting distinction was made between legal drugs that were prescribed and administered by the medical profession, and illegal drugs that were subject to state control and suppression.
Illegal in Canada since 1923, marijuana is the most controversial of illegal drugs. Because it lacks the same addictive and harmful qualities of other illegal substances, such as heroin and cocaine, marijuana's negative social impact is questionable. In the 1960s interest groups – including university student associations, certain physicians, and others – began demanding changes to the Narcotics Control Act, which governed the legal status of drugs, to decriminalize or legalize the possession of marijuana.
In Not This Time, Marcel Martel explores recreational use of marijuana in the 1960s and its emergence as a topic of social debate. He demonstrates how the media, interest groups, state institutions, bureaucrats and politicians influenced the development and implementation of public policy on drugs. Martel illustrates how two loose coalitions both made up of interest groups, addiction research organizations and bureaucrats – one supporting the existing drug legislation, and the other favoring liberalization of the Narcotics Control Act – dominated the debate over the legalization of marijuana, and how those favoring liberalized drug laws, while influential, had difficulty presenting a unified front and problems justifying their cause while the health benefits of marijuana use were still in question. Exploring both sides of the debate, Martel presents the invigorating history of a question that continues to reverberate in the minds of Canadians.
Electronic Format Disclaimer: Images removed at the request of the rights holder.
About the author
Marcel Martel is a professor in the Department of History at York University, where he holds the Avie Bennett Historica Dominion Institute Chair in Canadian History. He is the author of Not This Time: Canadians, Public Policy, and the Marijuana Question, 1961-1975 (2006), Le Deuil d’un pays imaginé. Rêves, luttes et déroute du Canada français (1997), and co-author of Speaking Up. A History of Language and Politics in Canada and Quebec (2012).
Editorial Reviews
‘Not This Time provides a fascinating and detailed account of how debate on Marijuana played out in the past; whether it is now “the time” for the legalization of marijuana is a much more open question.’
<em>Histoire sociale</em> vol41:81:08
Other titles by
Le moment Montfort dans la francophonie canadienne
Résistances, mobilisations et contestations
L’Association canadienne-française de l’Ontario (1910-2006)
Le ministère des Affaires extérieures du Canada
Volume II : L’essor, 1946-1968
La Confédération, 1864-1999
nouvelles perspectives
La Confédération, 1864-1999
nouvelles perspectives
Reconsidering Confederation
Canada’s Founding Debates, 1864-1999
Reconsidering Confederation
Canada’s Founding Debates, 1864-1999
Globalizing Confederation
Canada and the World in 1867
Roads to Confederation
The Making of Canada, 1867, Volume 2
Canada the Good
A Short History of Vice since 1500