“Informal Communities and Cannabis Regulation in the Emerald Triangle”, book chapter Palgrave&MacMillan, 2019 (original) (raw)
Related papers
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Coloradans have changed their fundamental views on illegal substances since the decriminalization of cannabis in Colorado. Since the legalization of medical cannabis in 2014, state-sold dispensary cannabis products have straddled the line between legal and illegal network systems in a hybridized "il/legal" market system, a term designed to be ambiguous of the formal and informal economies that it represents (Nordstrom 2007, xxvii). The cannabis commodity chain has proved both familiar and strange when it comes to its production, consumption, and distribution of a federally illegal substance. Colorado's history as a pioneer in culture and legislature has been repeated with cannabis legalization and provides a unique experience that cannot be replicated, drawing in tourists who produce income for the state. This il/legal experimentation will both prove vital in finding the market homeostasis of cannabis nationwide, but also, to see how Colorado's unique cannabis regulatory system affects this specific population's socioeconomic lifeway. This dissertation focuses on ethnographic research from the perspective of the Colorado dispensary "budtender," an ambiguous role that has taken on different valuemeanings depending on the state, system, and context, and it explores how these workers conceptualize their role in the cannabis commodity chain. Ethnographic methods proposed in this study lend well in explaining the relationship between regulation, tourism, and civil society, as well as documenting the transitionary period of Colorado history. This dissertation contributes to the literature by providing an ethnographic account of how budtenders navigate a newly formed economic sector and provides a starting point to collaborate with agencies to find practical solutions to the hardships workers face in the cannabis industry.
Cannabis, Communities, and Place: (Re)constructing Humboldt’s Post-Prohibition Present
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Since 1990, many Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and students have made cannabis the focus of scholarship and learning. This work has been shaped by the political, economic, and cultural legacies of cannabis in Humboldt County. Scholarly interest spans multiple dimensions of cannabis cultivation, commerce, consumption, and related social issues. As a multidisciplinary team of scholars, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty affiliated with the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR) have also shaped the Bachelor of Arts in Cannabis Studies that will launch in Fall 2023. This is the first social science degree program in the United States with this orientation. In this article we trace the origins of cannabis scholarship and learning at Cal Poly Humboldt from a period of domestic cannabis prohibition to the recent period of industry legalization. We also provide an overview of the BA program links to local and state policy and other contexts. Finally, we discuss cultivation communities and strategies of resilience in the context of economic turmoil as a result of legalization.
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This study examines how regulated cannabis businesses normalize their trade in the United States. Using interviews (N = 56) and a cross-sectional survey of cannabis professionals (N = 144), I find that the U.S. cannabis industry employs three strategies: (1) Using deviant practices to engage in legitimate business, (2) Reconciling divergent cultural frames for reducing stigma against the cannabis industry, and (3) Changing discursive repertoires that uniquely stigmatize cannabis and cannabis users. I argue that each strategy constitutes a new analytical category of social skill that contested industries leverage in a gray market context.
Weed, Need and Greed: A study of domestic cannabis cultivation
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Weed, Need and Greed explores the pheonomenon of domestic cannabis cultivation and examines its impact on the wider cannabis market. Drawing predominantly on 10 years of ethnographic research with cannabis growers, the result is a description of cannabis cultivation, and cannabis cultivators, in the industrialised world. The book explores how cannabis is grown. Most cannabis in Western countries is grown indoors with increasingly hi-tech cultivation methods being utilised. The methods employed by individual growers will depend on their opportunities, their intentions and, importantly, any ideological position which may influence their choice. It also explores who is involved in cannabis growing. Growers come from a wide range of backgrounds, but many share common 'ideological' traits that are rooted in an affiliation to a wider cannabis culture. A typology of cannabis growers i offered based on motivation and ideology. The key point here is that a large number of cannabis growers seek no financial reward whatsoever for their involvement in what is essentially an act of drug trafficking. Other growers do make money, but are equally motivated by non-financial 'drivers'. Still others are mostly or entirely driven by financial considerations. These growers often display the same hallmarks as drug-trafficking oufits. Consumer concerns can be seen to influence the market with smaller independent 'social' and 'social/commercial' growers offering an ideological - ethical, even - alternative to larger scale organised crime outfits. Finally, explanations for the recent surges in domestic cannabis cultivation seen all over the Western world are offered along with predictions for the future of domestic production not just of cannabis but other drugs as well.
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Cannabis Social Clubs are typically non-profit associations established by adult users of cannabis, which produce and distribute cannabis among their members. Such associations can be found in several European countries and beyond, but with exception of Uruguay, they are illegal or otherwise operate at the margins of domestic drug control legislation, at risk for law enforcement detection. We have conducted several individual and collaborative studies on Cannabis Social Clubs and their key actors (e.g. Cannabis Social Clubs leaders, users affiliated as members, cannabis growers, other stakeholders), primarily drawing on qualitative methods (e.g. ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, qualitative media analyses) but also employing a quantitative approach (e.g. online surveys). In this article, we reflect on the research experiences of the authors in studying Cannabis Social Clubs, providing insights for future research in this area and within criminology and socio-legal studies. In particular, we aim to examine our approaches with regard to the recruitment of participants and research design, identifying good practices, but also discussing what the less successful strategies were. We draw on research conducted since 2014 in different countries, with different legal frameworks, which provides an opportunity for a comparative and more in-depth critical consideration of what might be helpful ways of reaching and researching hard-to-reach populations.
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In criminological and sociological studies of illegal drugs, the thesis of normalization suggests that when a drug goes from being a marginal to a widespread phenomenon, theoretical and methodological approaches that rely on subculture theory fall short. This article argues that normalization theory fails to recognize the existence of a distinct cannabis culture because it has a traditional understanding of subcultures as 'groups of people'. The article suggests that a definition of subculture as a collection of rituals, stories and symbols is better for understanding contemporary subcultures and especially the cultural aspects of cannabis use. The conclusion is that although many use cannabis, it still signals opposition and cultural difference. A subcultural theoretical framework is thus crucial to understand illegal drug use. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 100 cannabis users in Norway.
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Social Problems
This article presents a case study of commercial cannabis in the United States. Drawing on 56 interviews with cannabis stakeholders collected between 2018-2020, I examine how different governmentalities of surveillance became distorted by the contradiction between state and federal cannabis laws. As in other regulated markets, these governmentalities informed state-sponsored surveillance initiatives to stop, contain, or support certain forms of deviance by commercial cannabis businesses. Due to fragmented governance, the efficacy of these initiatives depended in part upon the actions of the regulated cannabis industry. Commercial cannabis businesses looked to how surveillance was configured to develop strategies that could help them overcome challenges stemming from their semi-legality. These strategies included incorporating practices that were not required by law, partnering with the state in surveillance efforts, and engaging in activities to combat the black market. I argue that the embedded relationship between governmentalities, surveillance initiatives, and commercial cannabis activities transformed these strategies into mechanisms through which structure emerged in this nascent market. This paper introduces a set of surveillance categories, proposes new directions for research on social control and markets, and offers a novel study of commercial cannabis that can help to explain the trajectory of this market.