When historians gathered at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, in April of this year for the Cannabis: Global Histories conference, we were fortunate to have Morgan Scott of Breathe Image there to document the event. Morgan also took short videos of all the presenters, in which we discussed our work and the conference itself. We’re excited to welcome Morgan as Points’ new art director, and will continue to feature his awesome work on the blog over the next few weeks.
It’s also time to make another announcement: I’m back again at the helm of Points, returning as managing editor after taking off for almost two years to have my first child (my baby boy Henry is almost 21 months old), and publishing my first book, Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America. (Have you read it? Please write an Amazon review!)
As editor, I’m tasked with taking one for the team and overcoming my extreme self-consciousness to post my video first. You can check it out below. In it, I discuss an aspect of my dissertation that didn’t make it into my book: the parent movement’s international work in the 1980s, including the 1985 PRIDE conference which Nancy Reagan attended with nearly a dozen and a half first ladies from across the globe. This international battle against adolescent marijuana use was full of very powerful and popular imagery, but I argue that it was targeting a problem that wasn’t actually much of a threat.
Enjoy!