Booknote: Cannabis

Box Brown, Cannabis: the Illegalization of Weed in America. New York: First Second, 2019. ISBN: 978-1-250-15408-8.

Genre: graphic novels and comics
Subgenre: nonfiction, history, policy
Format: e-galley
Source: NetGalley

I wanted to like this book more. I read and enjoyed the author's book Andre the Giant (link to my review). Plus this book seems like a good timely choice given the current legalization movement in the United States. However, it is a book I would consider optional at best.

The book looks at the story of cannabis in the United States and how the movement to make it illegal was often motivated by race and class. At times, authorities did not care until it was white young people doing the drugs. Once that happened, moralists began to pressure the government to make it illegal.

The narrative of the story is not very good. It starts with various small scenes that can lack a sense of continuity. A big issue is the book gets seriously bogged down with Harry Aslinger's story. He was the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and cannabis' enemy number one. Yes, he was an important figure, but he basically takes over the rest of the book. Readers may get the impression not much of anything else happened in the 20th century related to cannabis. The last part of the book as a result feels rushed and less substantial. It feels as if the author ran out of space and had to rush the ending.

The result is that what could have been an interesting topic gets bogged down and becomes a drag to read. Readers may feel an urge to skim in order to get past Aslinger's story. Also the text can be a bit dry, like a textbook.

Overall, this book was just OK. For libraries, this is definitely optional. I've bought other books by this author for our library, but I am skipping this one for our library.

2 out of 5 stars.


This book qualifies for the following 2020 Reading Challenges:

#ARCApocalyse