Search results

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on Illicit Cannabis Cultivation in a Time of Policy Change.

The paper reviews some of the different adaptations made by cannabis growers in countries where cannabis has not been legalised.

Cannabis growers are adjusting to different legal settings by focusing on home production. Participation in cultivation is a crime, but can also be activism: an effort to change the law. Medical use of cannabis is a particularly important driver here. Having to break the law to alleviate symptoms and treat illnesses provides both a greater sense of urgency and a level of sympathy not usually granted to illicit drug users.

Grass-roots advocacy may drive policy change.

This is an original assessment of current state of knowledge on cannabis cultivation in countries where cannabis cultivation remains restricted.

The purpose of this paper is to document a leading UK cannabis activist’s efforts to bring about policy change and to convey his human story as a medical consumer. The paper contends that it is not enough to present evidence-based policies to effect change in drug policy, it is also vital to tell human stories, which people can relate to, in order to develop narratives which speak to people’s values.

An in depth, unstructured interview was conducted between Dr Melissa Bone and Cannabis Activist, Greg de Hoedt in December 2017. The interview was recorded, transcribed and formed the basis of the paper, which was co-edited and co-created by both authors.

The paper charts Greg’s journey from being a cannabis consumer – to being diagnosed with Crohn’s – to being a cannabis activist. The paper interweaves a drug policy discussion with a personal narrative. It connects unique insights into Greg’s life with the broader forces and institutions which influence cannabis policy at a local, national and international level.

Incorporating Greg’s personal narrative within an academic platform integrates his experiential knowledge into the “expert” evidence base. Alongside the potential of personal narratives to facilitate the production of knowledge, Greg’s emotive story could help to shape the public’s perception of cannabis, which could subsequently influence policy.

As a prominent Cannabis Activist in the UK, the purpose of this paper is to articulate some thoughts on where activists should go next, to challenge stigmatising drug laws.

A personal narrative is interweaved with a drug policy discussion and views on how activists can best promote reform.

Activists ought to fight moral injustice by breaking unjust laws if necessary. This paper demonstrates how activists can develop regulatory models from the bottom up via cannabis clubs and the importance of talking to and educating the media.

The author has been researching the benefits of medicinal cannabis since 2001 and assists terminal cancer sufferers around the world. The author is also an accomplished Public Speaker on cannabis and wishes to use this platform to share experience and thoughts with fellow activists.

The purpose of this paper is to: describe and contextualize the aims and distinctive and common characteristics of cannabis festivals in countries with different cannabis policies; assess characteristics of participants; identify reasons to attend cannabis festivals; explore to which extent cannabis festivals contribute to the social and cultural acceptance of cannabis, as perceived by attendees.

The approach incorporates three methods of data collection in the research design; quantitative research among 1,355 participants, participant observation and interviews with the organizers.

Cannabis festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Athens have common features but also maintain and reproduce local, social and cultural characteristics. Cannabis festivals, as well as their attendees, represent heterogeneous categories. The style of the festival – music festival or march combined with music – affects the main reason for attendance by the participants. In cannabis festivals more similar to music festivals the majority of the respondents attended for entertainment while at the cannabis festivals in the form of a march combined with music the majority attended for protest. Furthermore, increasing age, residency and the high frequency of cannabis use are factors that led the participants to attend for protest.

The research on cannabis festivals is limited. This paper not only explores the aims of cannabis festivals in four capital cities of Europe and the characteristics of their attendees including motivations, but also offers interesting insights for understanding the ways in which political and social constructions like cannabis festivals shape attitudes, perception and behaviors around cannabis use.

Both Bolivia and Uruguay broke ranks with the global drug prohibition regime by introducing novel drug policies. State control of the production and supply of coca and cannabis represents a clear departure from both the spirit and the letter of the international drug conventions. Although, the rationale, processes and outcomes of policy change were distinctive in many regards, this chapter posits that there are conceptual resemblances. In both countries, the leadership of a charismatic and idiosyncratic president has to be considered. Furthermore, in both countries, mobilisation and activism were also decisive. Lastly, in both countries novel drug policy responded to specific problems that decision-makers faced. Approaching drug policy reforms in Bolivia and Uruguay in terms of personal leadership, mobilisation and policy problems provides a useful analytical first-cut to assess the continuity and change in drug policy observable elsewhere. Additionally, scrutinising the reasons and motivations for undertaking drug policy reform also allows to better understand each country’s behaviour on the international stage.

In this paper, the author analyzed the repertoire of protest that cannabis activists employ in marches and mass demonstrations. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between key demands and identities surrounding cannabis movement and the repertoire of protest they normally use.

The work was designed as a qualitative case study to build a deep understanding and detailed description of the cannabis movement’s dynamics and an analysis of its repertoire of protest. Data collection was carried out in two fieldwork periods in 2016 and 2017. This phase mainly consisted of ethnographic work and semi-structured interviews. An exploratory study was also carried out in May 2016. Information was mainly collected through interviews that delved into various issues regarding the movement’s internal composition and dynamics. As such, the author conducted 23 interviews with participants in marches and mass demonstrations, as well as with current non-governmental organization members. The compiled information was analyzed according to the “documentary method.”

Although the Global Marijuana March brings together users, activists, civil society organizations and politicians, the Mexican cannabis movement has non-articulated demands, it lacks a strong common identity and limited resources for mobilization. These features find an echo in a poor repertoire of protest.

This is the first scholarly and systematic analysis of the Mexican cannabis movement in the academic literature. Further, there is a systematic analysis of the cannabis movement repertoire of protest and how cannabis activists are able to translate their demands and identities into banners, chants, performances, masks and costumes, performances, pamphleteering, and demonstrations.

The purpose of this paper is to map the presence of the Cannabis Social Club (CSC) model in Belgium since its emergence in the country and to analyze the inter-organizational relations among CSCs and between the CSCs and other supportive actors engaged in the wider cannabis movement.

This analysis draws on qualitative interviews (n=42) with directors of seven currently active and one former Belgian CSC(s), as well as with organizations or individuals reportedly collaborating with the Belgian CSCs. That data are complemented by fieldwork observations and a review of CSC internal documents.

Despite an uninterrupted presence in the country over the last decade, CSC presence in Belgium remains rather volatile and vulnerable to external control pressure. The CSC landscape is a somewhat segmented field as cooperation among CSCs remains limited. At the same time, the support base for the movement is diverse, encompassing different types of secondary organizations ranging from national and international advocacy groups, to cannabis industry entrepreneurs and other consultants.

This paper contributes to the yet limited body of knowledge on CSCs, by providing a first comprehensive overview of the presence of CSCs in one of the key settings associated with the model, by shedding light into the interplay between CSCs, and between other organizations supportive of the cannabis movement.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the characteristics of Hanfparade 2022 – the biggest prolegalization festival in Germany – and its visitors, as well as the main reason for participation in Hanfparade. Findings are compared to those from Hanfparade 2016 to explore whether the main reason for festival attendance has changed since the legalization of medical cannabis in 2017 and since the announcement of plans for cannabis legalization. Second, this paper assesses Hanfparade participants’ views on cannabis legalization in Germany, in particular their opinions on and their preferences for retail supply options.

This study is a replication of a research conducted in 2016 at the same festival in Berlin, with a slightly adapted questionnaire. In this study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used: observation at the festival, interviews before and after the festival with the organizer and a survey among festival attendees (n = 183).

Protest still looks relevant for the participants at Hanfparade, and the announcement of plans for legalization does not seem to downgrade this feeling. The participants have positive opinions about self-supply through home cultivation, noncommercial supply through Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) and commercial supply through stores similar to Dutch coffee shops. However, positive opinions do not necessarily reflect a personal preference, e.g. CSCs were very low in personal preferences. The options of home cultivation and CSCs were more popular among daily users.

This study contributes to the ongoing debate in Germany, focusing on views of cannabis users.

The present study aimed at classifying cannabis festival attendees based on their motivation and travel activities, profiling the resultant latent groups with demographic and travel characteristics and examining the association between the groups.

With a quantitative-exploratory approach, this study collected 392 out-of-state visitors' responses to a cannabis festival in Denver, Colorado and classified them according to their motivation and activity participation. Using the classification results, the study profiled the festival visitors based on their demographic and travel characteristics. Latent class analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and cross-tabulation were employed.

The results revealed that festival visitors were categorized into four latent groups by motivation and three latent groups by travel activity participation. Regarding motivation, the cannabis seekers (relatively young, White/Caucasian and residents in liberal states) and multi-purpose seekers (relatively young, Black/African American and residents in conservative states) were strongly motivated by cannabis-related factors. For travel activity participation, moderate participants were more likely to be first-time visitors, whereas active and passive participants were classified as repeat visitors.

The current study filled the research gap in the quantitative exploration of cannabis tourism industry in general and cannabis festival segment specifically. The findings contribute to (1) better understanding of out-of-state visitors' motivation and travel behaviors while attending a cannabis themed festival and (2) serving as a seminal work in the context of cannabis tourism literature since the recreational cannabis legalization in the United States.