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Social Science Criminology

Killer Weed

Marijuana Grow Ops, Media, and Justice

by (author) Susan C. Boyd & Connie Carter

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2014
Category
Criminology, General, General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442696594
    Publish Date
    Feb 2014
    List Price
    $32.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442643673
    Publish Date
    Feb 2014
    List Price
    $91.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781442612143
    Publish Date
    Jan 2014
    List Price
    $42.95

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Description

Since the late 1990s, marijuana grow operations have been identified by media and others as a new and dangerous criminal activity of “epidemic” proportions. With Killer Weed, Susan C. Boyd and Connie Carter use their analysis of fifteen years of newspaper coverage to show how consensus about the dangerous people and practices associated with marijuana cultivation was created and disseminated by numerous spokespeople including police, RCMP, and the media in Canada. The authors focus on the context of media reports in Canada to show how claims about marijuana cultivation have intensified the perception that this activity poses “significant” dangers to public safety and thus is an appropriate target for Canada’s war on drugs.

Boyd and Carter carefully show how the media draw on the same spokespeople to tell the same story again and again, and how a limited number of messages has led to an expanding anti-drug campaign that uses not only police, but BC Hydro and local municipalities to crack down on drug production. Going beyond the newspapers, Killer Weed examines how legal, political, and civil initiatives that have emerged from the media narrative have troubling consequences for a shrinking Canadian civil society.

About the authors

 

Susan C. Boyd is a scholar/activist and distinguished professor at the University of Victoria. She has authored several articles and books on drug issues, including Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada. She was a member of the federal Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation. She is a long-time activist who collaborates with groups that advocate for the end of drug prohibition and for the establishment of diverse services.

 

Susan C. Boyd's profile page

Connie Carter is a senior policy analyst for the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Connie Carter's profile page

Editorial Reviews

‘A first-rate book about marijuana, grow operations, and the media in Canada…. The book is both rigorous and sound, and will be of use to academics and graduate students doing work in drug policy, media studies, and sociology… Highly recommended.’

Choice vol 52:03:2014