Looking for invisibility and Looking for invisibility and listening for silence in listening for silence in marijuana legalization marijuana legalization

discourse in the District of discourse in the District of ColumbiaColumbia

What silences exist in text and talk about marijuana in the District of Columbia, following its approval of medicinal marijuana ballot initiatives?

How do these silences contribute to the current state of public discourse regarding the transition of marijuana from an illegal drug of abuse, to a doctor-recommended treatment option?

Research Questions

Historical Context

 D.C. Council Members enacted legislation in May 2010 authorizing the establishment of regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in the District of Columbia. On Monday, July 26, members of Congress allowed the measure to become law without federal interference.

The law amends the Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative, a 1998 municipal ballot measure which garnered 69 percent of the vote yet was never implemented. Until 2010, D.C. city lawmakers had been barred from instituting the measure because of a Congressional ban on the issue.

Source: www.NORML.com

Discourse Analysis of the “Legalization of

Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative of 1999” and the “Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Amendment Act of 2010” Categorization Metaphor Lexicon “Noisy silences” and geosemiotic invisbility

Methodology

Texts are the spoken or written instances of

language-in-action through which discourses are manifested, the concrete linguistic structures in which social understandings and ideologies are embedded (Hodge & Kress, 1993)

Critical Discourse Analysis is not a uniform or homogeneous method, but rather an inherently interdisciplinary activity that may draw on various theoretical backgrounds and methodological tools (Weiss & Wodak, 2003)

Analyzing text

The substance of the statute, in keeping with its dual

role as an act of language and an act of law, constitutes a text of a very special character… The words may be ambiguous, incomplete, or not even an accurate representation of the legislature's intention. But unless amended or repealed, the words must stand as they are. They are authoritative as words.

Unlike many other kinds of communicative competence, legislative communicative competence is not simply "picked up"; it is a learned communicative skill or craft which produces a craftbound discourse (Maley 1987)

Legislative Language

Controlling actions by words; here is the key to the understanding of legislative language.

(Maley 1987)

Speech Act Theory

The Mayor, pursuant to section 14 of the

Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative of 1999 (Act), effective July 27, 2010 (D.C. Law 18-210; D.C. Official Code §§ 7-1671.01, et. seq. (2011 Supp.)), hereby gives notice of the adoption on an emergency basis an amendment to title 22 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations (DCMR) that adds a new subtitle C entitled “Medical marijuana.”

Speech Act Theory

Categorization of drugs (Tupper 2008)

1. acceptable/legal drugs 2. bad/illegal drugs 3. medicines

Medicalization of drugs as treatments (Steen 2010) “As pharmakoi, drugs are inherently contradictory

substances, potentially both toxins and treatments. With drugs “malediction and benediction always call to and imply one another” (Derrida)

Categorization

The ideological force of metaphors is

emphasized by Lakoff and Johnson, who assert that metaphors play a central role in the construction of social and political reality (1980).

Schön argues that ―generative metaphors are tropes that can impose significant analytical constraints on framing policy solutions to intractable social problems (1993).

Marijuana and Metaphor

Marijuana as Malevolent Agent

Over the past century, the most salient metaphor that has grounded understandings of and policy responses to drugs is that of ―drugs as malevolent agents. By this conceptualization, drug use is understood primarily as a moral issue and people who use drugs are conceived of as wicked and deserving punishment (Marlatt, 1996).

Marijuana as Medicine

Our contemporary conception of drug use “encompasses two broad areas of meaning: medicinal preparations and chemically similar compounds consumed primarily for hedonistic purposes…”.

These two subcategories of usage—the therapeutic and the recreational—are most often held in diametric opposition under the law. The former behavior is condoned, while the latter typically is “characterized as drug ‘abuse’”, deserving of punitive sanctions. (Sheratt 2007)

Collocation within the phraseme:Marijuana- shall have the same meaning as provided

in section 102(3)(A) of the Controlled Substances Act.Medical marijuana- means marijuana cultivated,

manufactured, possessed, distributed, dispensed, obtained, or administered in accordance with the Act and the rules issued pursuant to section 14 of the Act.

Halliday, M.A.K., 'Lexis as a Linguistic Level', Journal of Linguistics 2(1) 1966: 57-67

Lexicon

Lexicon cont.

Collocation Instances Example

Total instances of marijuana

393

[+medical]marijuana

327 “A caregiver shall only possess and dispense medical marijuana to a qualifying patient”

[-medical] marijuana 66 “The United States Congress has determined that marijuana is a controlled substance and has placed marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substance Act.”

Lexicon

Invisibility and Silence

5710 VISIBILITY 5710.1 A dispensary or cultivation center shall not permit medical marijuana or paraphernalia to be visible from any public or other property not owned by the dispensary or cultivation center.

“Visibility”

5800 SIGN ADVERTISING 5800.1Advertisements relating to the prices of medical marijuana shall not be displayed in the window of a registered establishment. 5800.2Advertisements relating to medical marijuana shall not be displayed on the exterior of any window or on the exterior or interior of any door. 5800.3No sign advertising medical marijuana on the exterior or visible from the exterior of any registered establishment or elsewhere in the District shall be illuminated at any time.

“Sign Advertising”

5500.3 A dispensary or cultivation center registered under the Act shall not use or display a trade name, corporate name, or sign bearing the words “pharmacy”, “apothecary”, “drug store”, or other phrase that implies that the practice of any health profession occurs on the premises.

“Names”

5801 PROHIBITED STATEMENTS 5801.1 A registered cultivation center or dispensary shall not use any picture or illustration that depicts a child or immature person, or objects (such as toys), suggestive of the presence of a child, and any statement, design, device, picture, or illustration designed to be especially appealing to children or immature persons.

5801.2 A statement that is known by the dispensary or cultivation center to be false or misleading with respect to advertised price charged to the qualified patient, ingredients of medical marijuana, source of manufacturer, or statements as to health benefits, shall be prohibited. 5801.3 A statement that encourages the use or purchase of medical marijuana without a registration card shall be prohibited.

“Prohibited Statements”

How will the legalization of medical marijuana

appear in school substance abuse literature? Shifting away from text and towards

interactional sociolinguistics, where do noisy silences occur in doctor-patient communication?

Further Steps