Dr. Emily Dufton, author of “Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America,” discusses the history of cannabis in the US. She explains that media portrayals of cannabis have evolved over time, from being promoted as a medicine in the 1700s to being associated with violence and insanity in the 1930s. While Harry Anslinger is often blamed for the negative portrayal of cannabis, Dufton argues that the racialized imagery associated with the drug became more prominent in the 1980s.

Cannabis portrayals in media have evolved over time, reflecting societal attitudes. Initially depicted as a threat to social order, cannabis transitioned to a symbol of counterculture in the 60s and 70s. By the 80s and 90s, it became a comedic trope, and in recent years, it is increasingly portrayed as a legitimate industry.

The normalization of cannabis use is increasing due to its availability in dispensaries and online, as well as its portrayal in media. Despite this, persistent myths about cannabis, such as the stoner archetype and its association with deviating from the mainstream, remain. The stigma surrounding cannabis use continues to hinder its acceptance for medical purposes, despite its potential benefits.

Cannabis Boomer podcast aims to educate users about cannabis and its effects, emphasizing the importance of informed consumption. The information shared is based on current scientific opinion and should not be considered medical advice.

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On The Cannabis Boomer Podcast, The Cannabis Boomer welcomes Dr. Emily Dufton, scholar and expert on the history of drugs. Dr. Dufton is the Author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America and the upcoming book Addiction Inc., Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs. Rolling Stone Magazine called Grass Roots one of the eight best weed books to read right now and is recommended for any listeners who want to dive deep into the history of cannabis in the US.

With that, please welcome Dr. Emily Dufton and Alex Terrazas, PhD, The Cannabis Boomer.

Welcome to the podcast.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. This is really fun.

Tell me how you started studying this interesting topic.

My, my introduction to the field came in kind of a, a backwards way. I started grad school in 2008 and I was really interested in studying social movements and social activism. And what made movements powerful and influential, and I didn't really know how to go about that, but I wanted to do something new and interesting for the field.

And so I wrote my dissertation on the parent movement and their, their impacts specifically on the Reagan administration. And then when I was looking to write grassroots, I realized. I couldn't just focus on the parent activists themselves because they were acting in response to a previous wave of activism that came before them.

Um, I love to study because a lot of the people were still alive. I could still talk to them. They sent me things. They were eager to talk, and I just had so much fun writing about it. And I've been, I've been writing about it ever since. I got, I got hooked. What can I say?

How far back do media representations of cannabis go? Are there any cave depictions?

About 10,000 years. Honestly. There's archeological evidence of people in the Neolithic age around the Hindu Kush mountains, which is where people believe cannabis originated the plant using it for medical purposes, for nutrition I wouldn't, I guess it would be hard to call that a media representation.

But it certainly did begin to inspire a lot of media portrayals by, oh, certainly the 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds by the time cannabis was in a wider, more globalized sense of use, use either as a medicine briefly as an intoxicants, and then of course as a as a, as a social problem.

It is commonly thought that the modern media portrayal of cannabis took a dark turn in the thirties, especially including the racial overtones. What are your thoughts on that common assumption?

It's really interesting. I was, I went back when, when you invited me on this podcast, I went back and I was looking at. A lot of those media portrayals and you can kind of group them into periods or, or epics, right?

And it was very exoticized. It was something for the middle class that wanted to explore both alternative cultures and, you know, the regions of their minds. Now this prompted a lot of backlash. Not only the portrayals of it as this way to achieve this sort of dreamy exoticized like mental space, but also down south as you get closer to the border of Mexico, where representations of marijuana are ones that lead you to the idea of reefer madness, where you lose control of your inhibitions.

A lot of the ideas and the origins of the reefer madness myths came directly from Mexico itself, which had a huge revolution against the drug in the 18th and 19th centuries, where the Mexican government was very opposed to its use. It was Mexican newspapers that were spreading lies of Reefer Madness and those actually migrated north and really infiltrated American newspapers as well.

Protecting the white youth of America, not necessarily from racial problems, but from the insanity that he is assuring the American public cannabis will cause.

Well that goes contrary to what a lot of popular mythology is about Harry Anslinger and the war on drugs.

I think because we like to have, um. Like, we like to have someone we can pin all of the problems on, and Harry does seem like the right kind of guy because he was very opposed to cannabis use. He was very opposed to, um, maintenance drugs for people with opioid addiction. He was very much a recreational use prohibitionist.

On the alternative side. On the other hand, of course, he was stockpiling massive amounts of opium and morphine 'cause he knew America was going to get into World War ii. So he believed in the medical use of drugs, but not so much the recreational use of drugs. And if you go through everything he said and how he actually behaved, there are fewer instances of him being an overt racist.

And in fact, there's actually a lot of relationships he had specifically with his Black Ghost writer, who is a man named John A. Williams, who is a huge force in the civil rights movement and wrote a lot of really pro, pro-black literature, but also worked with Harry Anslinger and was a ghost writer for several of his books.

So I think Harry Anslinger is a more complicated historical figure than we give him credit for. But it's also, you know, it's nice to have a target when you're upset about something and Harry Anslinger feels like a good person to blame 'cause he is been dead for, you know, 40 years. So it's easy.

That is certainly interesting and eyeopening for me. But of course, cannabis criminalization has had a very negative impact on communities of color.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And you see a lot of the association with racialized imagery in drugs coming specifically in the 1980s where this is where you get a lot of, like, those like primetime dramas that like deal with drugs.

But those are, but that, but that again, is just media portrayals at this time. Marijuana is, I don't know, less of an issue in the eighties than crack is.

While watching movies, what are some of the things that we should look for when we're considering the portrayal of cannabis?

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. Well, so I feel like because, because I'm a historian, I think that way all the time. It's like, I always think chronologically and I think cannabis kind of goes through sort of four distinct periods as far as, um.

Uh, like you have a really jokey approach. To pot in the, in the late eighties and early nineties, which is, which is where it becomes less a social threat and more just this comic, this comic, you know, component. And then it becomes basically like an industry where you start to see cannabis being represented as something that is simply like part of life and part of our business opportunities.

And I feel like you see that with weeds. Uh, you see that with. Other drugs as well, like you're seeing that with breaking bad. So that transformation of, oh, you see that with High Maintenance, which is on HBO. Oh, yeah. So it goes from like, basically from a threat to a joke to kind of like an identity, almost like the stoner archetype to representations of an industry.

It's like from moral panic to, to the mainstream. That's you can, and you can watch Cannabis Evolution that way through the movies and the television shows that we've made about it for going on a hundred years.

Right, and I guess it's not just about visual media, it's also about music. And then the uh, lazy stoner stereotype is one that is prominent.

Absolutely. Right. Like you see that through the two thousands. You have like. How High and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. And then I think you have like several more Harold and Kumar movies where you have Pineapple Express. I mean, there's just the, it, it kind of became this hilarious trope that got rolled out again and again.

It's, it's no longer going to immediately respond in personal and social downfall.

Shows like High Maintenance. You had mentioned that before. I found that to be a groundbreaking show showing different people using cannabis and in all walks of life.

Totally. I mean, it's a really, I think from a writing perspective, it's brilliant, right?

Because you're following the delivery guy and you have all of these windows into life and all of these different locations throughout New York. And it's, I mean, to do for, for a, a show to kind of. Promote or showcase the wide variety of people who by this point, you know, by the, by the two thousands are using this substance as it is increasingly legal, increasingly available, and increasingly de-stigmatized.

Like yeah, High Maintenance really kind of captures that moment beautifully and, and in moments that are like, the show's just great. It's funny, it's moving. It can make me cry. Like it's a good, it's a really good show.

And one of the things I noticed in high maintenance is that they have older actors. I am of course, interested in how older users are represented.

Oh, totally. And, and that really is, I think, the demographic who is, um, actually at this point, kind of using cannabis products the most, right? For a variety of medical ailments or to replace alcohol in their lives. I've noticed this a lot even with like, my friends we're in our early forties and drinking just, it's just hangovers are really bad now.

You know? Like they're just really bad. And a lot of my friends have, have given up drinking almost entirely and replaced their, if they're looking for like a little relaxation or something on the weekend, they're, gummies are really big, right? Because they're very available. You don't have to smoke anything.

It seems less harmful and it seems increasingly less problematic than drinking. So we're almost seeing like a flip right now between alcohol and cannabis use, which is, I mean, something certainly Harry Anslinger never would've anticipated,

The Cannabis Boomer: Well, I bet the alcohol companies want to understand that social change. At least, they better.

They are, and they're also keen, many of them are keen on moving into the industry space.

Especially because THC, although it's a lipophilic cannabinoid, it can be blended into drink mixes. So you're seeing a lot more THC drinks with like two to 10 milligrams per dose available. I mean, in some places because of the legal hemp industry at like gas stations and grocery stores, other places keep them restrained to dispensaries.

Do you think that the media portrayals and their changes have had a role in legalization?

I certainly think so. I certainly think so because the more you normalize something and the more you see it portrayed in like a show that you like, I think it changes conversations and it changes views.

Now, not all shows or movies or ads or anything have been overwhelmingly positive and accepting. If, you know the TV show Suits, which launched Meghan Markle and now she is, now she's a princess. Right. But my, my husband loves Suits. It's like the show he watches when I don't wanna watch TV with him.

And so he's obsessed with it. But he told me he was, I knew he told, I told him I was going on this podcast and he was like, oh, you have to mention suits because that show represents cannabis in a really negative way. Because one of the main characters is a cannabis dealer, and they present him as this really bad guy, this really dangerous guy, this really violent guy.

So now we're in this new media environment, which never existed before with social media and all these representations. Children have access to a lot of these. What are your thoughts on cannabis and the new media?

Well, it's certainly added to the normalization. Of use, right? Because you see, or at least I do, 'cause the algorithm feeds you.

Like you look at something once and it feeds you seven more of the same thing. But I, I saw a series made by a young female comic called Hi, I'm High, where she just, she's based in New York and she went to like the New York Marathon. High. And she just comments on it and it's, it's comical in that sort of like bumbling big Lebowski way.

But it certainly provides a lot more. You know, like cannabis content than we've ever had access to before, and representations from a wide variety of perspectives and also. Advertisements for products, right? Because THC is available in sort of two distinct pathways right now, at least for the next year, where you can go to, if you live in a state that has allowed it, you can go to your local dispensary and purchase these products, but you have to be over 21 and you have to show an id, and you can only buy things that have certain potencies and generally in packages that don't look like typical candies and things like that.

Like there's like 6,000 milligram bags of gummies. There's 12 in them and they're 500 milligrams a piece. I mean, this is, this is some very serious, yeah, some serious stuff. But you can advertise that on social media because hemp is not a schedule one substance. So there is more access to cannabis content, advertisements and sales than ever before, which I think mirrors our legal and commercial environment where cannabis itself is more legal than ever before.

So based on your research, what are the most persistent myths about cannabis?

Ah, that's interesting. I guess certainly the, um, the stoner archetype for sure. Right. This sort of jokey, stoner archetype who gets lost to, you know, sort of like lost in the, in the, in the, the wilds of the world where like they, they don't have a lot of, you know, ambition.

They're not interested in, in anything other than sort of enjoying the day. I feel like that's, that's still pretty persistent. Um. And I think purposefully pursued by people like Seth Rogan, you know, 'cause he's sort of selling his own THC products right now too. It really is a business. But also I feel like the, the archetype that's continued to persist is one where cannabis use makes you different.

Stigma surrounding pot has really held back people who could use it for medical purposes. For example, in my episode about migraine, cannabis seems effective in treating migraine and it is very inexpensive, but a lot of women I know think that it's going to lead them down a bad path. It's unfortunate.

Right, right.

It will lead you to, it will lead you down, down a dangerous path. And that's certainly still true too. And I, you know, it's, it's interesting 'cause I guess there's sort of like. Two shifting viewpoints. There's a lot of people who still hold onto that reefer madness. You know, if I have, if I use this once, it's gonna continue to lead me down a dangerous path.

And then there's the growing embrace among the older generation that this is something that offers alternatives to traditional medicine out of the traditional pharmacies and a sense of relief or recovery that wasn't possible with other substances. So, but I mean, it kind of fits the whole. American media narrative about this drug, which has always been multiple things to multiple people kind of all at once.

What are you working on now?

Ah, well, actually I am almost exactly four months away from the release of my next book which is called thank You. I'm, it's been years in coming. It's been a lot of work. But it's called Addiction Inc. Medication Assisted Treatment, and America's Forgotten War on Drugs.

And I'm actually moving away from cannabis and this is a book about the history of the federal government's development of the medications that treat opioid addiction. So it's not about heroin, it's not about Oxycontin, it's not about fentanyl, but it's about the development of the drugs people use to treat addiction to heroin and fentanyl and Oxycontin, which are the drugs, methadone, buprenorphine, naltrexone, and a substance we don't use anymore called Lam, LAAM, and how the federal government was intimately involved in the development of all these medications and then basically pass them off to private industry to turn them into for-profit.

I look forward to that. When you were researching grassroots, what were some of the biggest surprises that you encountered?

Hmm. I think how powerful the decriminalization movement was in the 1970s. It was really fascinating to me how widespread it was.

Oregon, California, New York, they're on it. But some of the other ones were surprising, and I was very surprised by how wide widespread the embrace of. Adults use of cannabis and the decriminalization of this practice was 50 years ago, and how rapidly we forgot about it, like it was just this blip on the radar and it disappeared.

So for the listeners who want to understand this better and go more in depth, obviously your book is a great place to start, but what else can you recommend?

So Martin Booth's Cannabis a History is wonderful. He's British but he writes a lot about the American context as well. And Martin, a Lee's Smoke Signals is also an incredible book. So for the two books specifically about cannabis history, those are the ones I recommend the highest.

And of course, I really love Martin Torgoff's Can't Find My Way Home. I just think that's, I think that's a fantastic book. He wrote a follow up as well. Called Bop apocalypse, which is all about the jazz era. And if you're really interested in that particular time period, you can, you can read all of Martin to Goff's excellent work.

He's got all kinds of good things to offer you.

Dr. Emily Dufton, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here today. I will put links to your books and your website in my show notes so everyone can go get them. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was really fun and I wish all of your listeners very happy holidays and happy 2026.

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