Jason Davis
University Of Phoenix
BCOM
275
Tania Say
September 08, 2013
Cultural Differences
Brazil and the United States appear to have completely different cultures. There is an ongoing debate on the legalization of marijuana in the United States. Interestingly enough, this same debate has been going on in Brazil for some time. The US and Brazil have very similar historical reasons for criminalizing marijuana. It is said that the Africans brought over into Brazil for slavery, brought with them marijuana, “The smoking of Cannabis is believed to have been introduced into Colonial Brazil by African slaves” (MacRae & Simoes, 2008, para. 2) This is the same type of story for the US. Historical information states that the US blamed marijuana on Mexican immigrants coming to the US looking for work in the 1900s. Both countries blamed a race they believed to be inferior at the time. Both countries tied crime and race to marijuana. They used this as a way to ban the drug decades ago. The US and Brazil share many characteristics in regards to the war on drugs. The United States had laws popping up in the early 1900s criminalizing marijuana. Brazil also had criminalized marijuana in 1936, “in 1936 the plant was finally classified as a narcotic, whose sale and use ought to be banned, (MacRae & Simoes, 2008, p. 3)”.
Initially we believed that due to the cultural differences between the US and Brazil there would be significant differences in the arguments or presentation of the arguments to decriminalize marijuana, but after much research it appears that the two countries have a much more in common than previously thought. Brazil has held marijuana marches since 2002. The US has had a fight against the war on drugs since inception. The US has many states that