Isaac Campos Book, Home Grown, about Mexicos Use of...

Isaac Campos wrote this book in order to provide a background history of Mexico’s use of marijuana and the effect it had in Mexican society. He displays marijuana’s extent both, socially and politically. He scripted his book to carry the reader from the arrival of cannabis (would later be referred to as marijuana) in Mexico through the substance’s prohibition in 1920. With this book, he attempts to â€Å"decipher the psychoactive riddle of cannabis in nineteenth and early twentieth century Mexico† (p.8). The â€Å"psychoactive riddle† is the way the drug, set, and setting are imposed on the resulting influence of marijuana. Home Grown is significant in understanding the War on Drugs and the impact marijuana has had on society in North America. It provided history of notable events due to the production and prohibition of the drug ranging from its introduction until the 1920s when it was banned. Campos argued that the negative stereotypes of m arijuana, often thought to have originated in the United States, actually originated in Mexico as a way to control the use of the drug. Citizens of Mexico related the drug to causing the users to go mad, hence the reason of the term â€Å"Reefer Madness.† Campos presented a series of questions in his introduction that he used to build his argument. Were the stereotypical effects really caused by the use of marijuana? Why were the stereotypes believed so easily? Why did the media not investigate into the stereotypes? How and where did the