social issues....a bit of school help.
 

alright people...i'm just looking for a bit of help on a topic for a project for my sociology class. it has to do primarily with social change.

It could be how an event, or something of that nature, has effected societies view on a particular issue. or just how societies view on a particular issue has evolved over time, and what has caused that evolution.

for example, the idea of sex, and how it has changed in the media mind and ours since the 1920's.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

as far as events changing the way we view things.

Martin Luther King Jr's assasination/ racism
Use of a nuclear warhead / intelligent weaponry
9/11 / terrorist security

ooooor

look at how drug laws have changed with time over use of marijuana

look at how the idea of punishment in schools has changed over time

look at how the idea of "edgy" (for lack of a better word) music has changed over the years (like when jazz was such dirty music... then elvis and so on and so forth)

i think i've decided to delve into the evolution of society's take on marijuana. but i'm up in the air as to which time period to compare....

it does have to be comparing now to the past, but i havent decided which time period to compare now to. the seventies would be pretty easy, but i think that might be a little too recent. but the fifties and sixties might work.

yeah, go back to the jazz era. you should show Reefer Madness as a visual piece.

Actually, the jazz era is a good thing; but as I recall marijuana only became illegal on the federal level in '35 or so. In those days, the majority of smokers were actually farmworkers in the southwest (and urban blacks, to a degree), so the purity police had an easy time making it illegal: poor Latino farmworkers and black ghetto-dwellers had no clout.

If marijuana was still legal today and someone was trying to outlaw it, they'd have a much harder time now. Because it's used in all segments of society now, and many people with clout would oppose it. That might be a good subject, actually: the circumstances under which pot was originally made illegal federally, and if those circumstances would still hold true today if pot was currently legal and somebody was trying to criminalize it.

that was when it was first being made illegal. Reefer Madness came out in the mid 30's to try and slow use and avoid letting it hit middle class america as hard. Around the 50's is when they revised the laws so that penalties were much harsher and enforcement was much stronger.

"Federal laws (Boggs Act, 1952; Narcotics Control Act, 1956) were passed to establish mandatory sentences for drug-related offenses, including marijuana. A first offense or marijuana possession carried a minimum sentence of 2-10 years with a fine of up to $20,000."

There were TONS of cases of people getting sentenced for rediculous amounts of time over very small amounts of marijuana.


theres numberous sites online that have great timelines. I would suggest picking an area that interests you most and go from there to now. With medical marijuana being legal in multiple states with more on the way.

*EDIT*

also rent and watch the movie "Grass". Woody Harrelson narrates it. It's basically a video timeline and history of marijuana law and use.

for sex since the 1920's, check out the Kinsey Report, and how it shocked the nation.
Pretty tame by today's standards, but when it came out, it was totally scandalous.

I know you're set on the weed report, but just in case I'll make another suggestion. You could talk about the German people and their polical involvement today versus in previous time periods. Throughout history the German people have been thrown around in europe like a rag doll. In WWII it seems the German psychie had enough and now they are VERY involved in the polical process and very concious of their leaders policies. Just a thought.

Spanking your children has been a topic that has changed/continues to change over time.

You could do a report on how the introduction of the birth control pill allowed teh sexual revolution of the 1970's to occur. I would argue that it's the most influential invention of the 20th century.