Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy

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Culture matters! Changes in the global landscape

of cannabis

Michał Wanke, Sveinung Sandberg, Ruken Macit & Hakan Gülerce

To cite this article: Michał Wanke, Sveinung Sandberg, Ruken Macit & Hakan Gülerce (2022)
Culture matters! Changes in the global landscape of cannabis, Drugs: Education, Prevention
and Policy, 29:4, 317-322, DOI: 10.1080/09687637.2022.2091301

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DRUGS: EDUCATION, PREVENTION AND POLICY
2022, VOL. 29, NO. 4, 317–322
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687637.2022.2091301
EDITORIAL
Culture matters! Changes in the global landscape of cannabis
Over the past 10–20 years, there has been a growing number
of studies dealing with cannabis users’ identities (e.g. Bilgrei
et al., 2021; Hammersley et al., 2001; J€arvinen & Ravn, 2014),
the stigma they maneuver (Dumbili, 2020; Hathaway, 2004),
for example through neutralization techniques (J€arvinen &
Demant, 2011) and the symbolic boundaries distinguishing
them from both other drug users and mainstream culture
(Copes, 2016; Sandberg, 2012a). This literature has advanced
the study of cannabis beyond the confines of the enduring
normalization debate (Pennay & Measham, 2016) and
expanded upon the cultural and societal characteristics of
cannabis use. With this special issue, we want to forefront
studies demonstrating how culture matters for our under-
standing of cannabis, and explore how simplified and general
statements about use patterns and trends are challenged
when seen from a more global perspective.
The aims of this special issue might be particularly import-
ant in light of contemporary cannabis liberalization (Oldfield
et al., 2021; Søgaard et al., 2021). Processes of decriminaliza-
tion or regulation and increasing acceptance differ consider-
ably around the world and should be viewed as processes
rather than as single events (Hammond et al., 2020). In what
can be described as the onto-politics of cannabis, drug cul-
tures, user identities, and state policies are continuously
made, unmade, and transformed (Søgaard & Lerkkanen,
2021), creating new cultural meanings, and leaving users
with new dilemmas and choices. Although some Anglo-
Saxon countries that dominate the research literature show
signs of normalization (Pennay & Measham, 2016), these ten-
dencies have always been contested (e.g. Measham & Shiner,
2009) – and as demonstrated by this special issue – cannabis
is still heavily stigmatized in many places throughout the
world. There is a great variety of cannabis practices and sym-
bolism, and the drug has a long history of being associated
with a liquid and highly adaptable subculture (Sandberg,
2013). Indigenous use, and use in ritual settings (Kohek et al.,
2021) are other reasons why a local and cultural perspective
is essential in cannabis research.
Contemporary transformations of cannabis markets can be
plotted on a continuum from prohibition via forms of decrim-
inalization to legalization and regulated sales (Palamar et al.,
2014; Stevens, 2019; Williams & Bretteville-Jensen, 2014). The
existence of many different cannabis policies adds further
complexity to understanding the drug and highlights the
necessity of having both a global perspective and a local
approach when exploring for example cannabis markets.
There is no single way to understand or analyze interactions
within such a supply system, and sometimes it comes down
to explaining the dynamics of particular marketplaces (e.g.
Moeller, 2009; Sandberg, 2012b). Culturally rich and complex
markets as well as sellers’ and buyers’ strategies mediate
between the unofficial (and illegal) supply and the many dif-
ferent groups of users (Coomber & Moyle, 2014; Decorte &
Potter, 2015; Werse et al., 2019). People who use cannabis
also react to legislative changes and try to exploit the gaps
allowing for personal use but not for supply (Belackova et al.,
2015; Belackova & Wilkins, 2018), for example through
Cannabis Social Clubs in Europe that attempt to use the
decriminalization of personal use in coordinated associations
that supply the drug to their members (Decorte et al., 2017).
The cultures in which different cannabis markets are
embedded also influence how they work economically
(Sandberg, 2012b), and in this way cannabis markets, canna-
bis cultures and continuous legislative changes are closely
intertwined.
Legislative, cultural and market changes intertwine with
medical cannabis and the tensions between recreational
users maintaining certain (sub)cultural meanings of the
drugs, and medical activists, users and legislators advocating
easier access to medical marijuana (Pedersen & Sandberg,
2013; Sznitman & Bretteville-Jensen, 2015). Moreover, with
liberalization, medical cannabis and regulated access to can-
nabis become subject to the capitalist organization of supply,
which interferes not only with the illicit markets and the
organized crime structures but also with established and
more harmless structures of supply that are involved in offer-
ing care and treatment (Subritzky et al., 2016). The introduc-
tion of regulations also meant the expansion of the so-called
“big canna” industry, with all the contradictions of neoliberal
capitalism, and the exploitation of the Global South
(Bloomer, 2019; Velez-Torres et al., 2021). Growing cannabis
in Africa for example, has become increasingly profitable but
is prone to discretionary policing amid “quasi-legality”
(Carrier & Klantschnig, 2018; Nelson & Obot, 2020). Moreover,
in some places, the human workforce, the soil and the water
are all exploited, and traditional farming practices are ruined
by Northern investors; some examples being Morocco and
Jamaica where efficiency is prioritized over quality and con-
trol (Chouvy, 2019; Rychert et al., 2021). The principles of fair
trade often seem to be missing (Kay et al., 2020) and the glo-
bal cannabis industry fails to empower the traditional
growers, protect their labor, or promote transparency or par-
ticipatory and democratic control over cannabis production
(Manu et al., 2021).
The digital sphere adds another dimension to the shifts in
the global landscape of cannabis. The impact of the internet
and social media arguably augment supply (Demant et al.,
2019), both in the case of the dark and the surface web
(Jardine & Lindner, 2020). Yet, the activity of vendors
accounts for only a small part of cannabis-related online
318 M. WANKE ET AL.
traffic. With global cannabis markets and cultures, the
Internet acts as a broker of new trends and established forms
of symbolism and narratives. They sometimes form
“networked publics” of mainstream cannabis marketing that
oftentimes go “below the radar” (Abidin, 2021). Moreover,
the new regulation of cannabis markets has dramatically
changed the online presence of the substance (Bakken &
Harder, 2022). Influencers sponsored by the emerging canna-
bis industry, for example, change both the market and the
cultural ideas associated with use.
Cannabis cultures
Cannabis currently undergoes what can be conceptualized as
a “civilizing process” (Elias, 1978), being more and more
socially regulated, and subjected to a great variety of power-
ful discourses and evolving ontologies (Søgaard & Lerkkanen,
2021). Yet, the “modernization” of cannabis has not removed
the taboos, rituals, performances or mystery and aura associ-
ated with the drug. On the contrary, we would argue that
cannabis research now, more than ever, is in need of a
“cultural turn” (Alexander, 2021) to uncover the “cultural rep-
ertoires” (Lamont & Fleming, 2005), “cultural bricolages”
(Levi-Strauss, 1966), or “cultural toolkits” (Swidler, 1986) that
underpin the practices that guide both the use of cannabis
and the informal and formal sanctioning of the drug.
Contemporary studies of culture tend to emphasize how
human behavior and their norms, values and beliefs are inter-
twined (relationality), how power relations are inscribed in
cultures (dissensus and consensus) and how weak boundaries
facilitate symbolic and embodied transgressions. Culture thus
encompasses the most important aspects of contemporary
social life: interconnectedness, conflict and fluidity
(Appadurai, 2004). Cannabis users are at the same time
entangled in relations with local social networks, long-lasting
local and global drug cultures, prohibitive legal systems and
variably stigmatizing societies. Hence, depending on the con-
text, cannabis users can be friends, customers, consumers,
criminals, patients, dealers and/or caregivers.
The potential of “cannabis as ‘natural’ drug” narratives,
medical cannabis ideology and “care for the self” narratives
contrast with the stigmatization many users experience.
Identities and reactions from society being at odds imply a
constant need for identity management and handling out-
comes of use (including therapy). Cannabis users also become
consumers, with different rights or repercussions across vari-
ous legal frameworks while still often participating in ambigu-
ous illegal markets, frequently on blurry terms for example
through social supply. When in regulated markets, they have
to make consumer choices and become subject to marketing
activity (Cormack & Cosgrave, 2021) where even packaging
can highlight tensions among different cultural meanings asso-
ciated with cannabis (Ventresca & Elliott, 2022).
Contemporary developments in cannabis cultures and
markets result in many tensions as well (Kaplan, 1970;
Owusu-Bempah & Luscombe, 2021). When use is criminalized,
policing is often racialized or impacted by social class (Ahuja
et al., 2022). There is also a gender dimension where women
who use cannabis, in most societies, are more prone to
experience stigma than men. In terms of age, older users can
also experience harsher stigmatization, since their cannabis
use is less expected. In sum, it is problematic to reify canna-
bis by treating it as a unidimensional substance. It is interwo-
ven in complicated cultural relations, and this special issue
serves as a reminder to drug scholars of the need to account
for the cultural complexity when studying cannabis use
and supply.
A global and diverse perspective
In assembling this special issue, we aimed at conceptual, top-
ical and geographical diversity in order to map the variability
of cannabis cultures and markets on a global scale. The issue
accordingly covers the stigma, gendered use, comparisons,
social worlds, symbolic boundaries, subcultures, identity work
as well as digital, regulated and markets in transformation.
Geographical diversity was difficult to obtain due to the
domination by Western scholars in this field (as in most
others in global academia), and many interesting research
projects we engaged with from the Global South did not
adhere to the stylistic tradition and form of academic pub-
lishing in the “Global North.” We made several efforts to
encourage colleagues from non-Western countries to respond
to the call, we engaged with their writing, and in some cases,
we succeeded, but more often than not, we failed to produce
a paper that met the rigid standards of the academic trad-
ition this journal (for example) represents. Nevertheless, we
ended up with 11 contributions, three from the US, and the
rest from Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland,
Latvia, Norway and Sweden, thus resulting in a relatively
broad geographical representation. We also invited reviewers
from outside Western academia to ensure that referees repre-
sent diverse perspectives.
In this special issue, the three articles from Eastern Europe
and Africa illustrate the discrepancy between global tenden-
cies of liberalization and normalization as well as the soci-
eties that are more conservative and stigmatizing regarding
cannabis. The result is often intense processes of symbolic
boundary drawing, social world cocooning and sustaining
detached yet burgeoning cannabis cultures. A qualitative
study from Latvia (Bebre, 2022) gives an insight into how
cannabis stigma is played out in post-Soviet Riga. It describes
how cultural codes regarding cannabis have changed follow-
ing Communism, but also how cannabis users distanced
themselves from the stereotypical “pothead” to avoid formal
(punitive legislation) and informal (stigmatization) sanctions
from a still highly cannabis-conservative Latvian society.
Another study from Poland (Wanke et al., 2022) similarly
explores the symbolic boundaries and social worlds of post-
communist cannabis users. They detach themselves from
conservative legal and social contexts, and the allegedly
regressive Polish society, but interestingly also from more
progressive Western legislations and cultures. Finally, a con-
tribution from Nigeria (Ugwu & Dumbili, 2022) explores can-
nabis use and community forming in the province of Awka,
elaborating on how users manage police extrajudicial

practices and stigma. The study describes how cannabis users
form communities or subcultures around the drug, which
cushion the effects of social discrimination and persecution
by corrupt law enforcement. Findings indicate that cannabis
users suffer from both stigmatization and human
rights abuses.
The grand narrative of cannabis liberalization is also chal-
lenged in Western countries. It is not a unilinear process, and
decriminalization and/or normalization evoke their own con-
tradictions and contesting stories, progressive or conserva-
tive. Such tensions shape users’ identities, as they do not
uncritically absorb liberalizing paradigms, but selectively and
creatively incorporate parts of political and moral narratives
of cannabis into their own life situations and life stories. Two
Nordic studies illustrate this dynamic: Research from Norway
(Bilgrei et al., 2022) provides added insight into the role of
political cannabis narratives and illustrates how adolescents
make selective use of these to negotiate personal identity.
The participants could, for example, draw on both progres-
sive and conservative political identities in ways that
reflected their political orientation and sense of identity. For
many, views on cannabis thus do not exist as streamlined
ideology or in isolation but must be seen as fragmented and
reflecting key dimensions of personal identity and contem-
porary society. A Swedish study (Ekendahl & Karlsson, 2022)
explores comparisons as a tool for identity formation and
reveals similar complexity and narrative fragmentation. More
specifically, they study what is compared when accounting
for cannabis use. The results indicate that young people asso-
ciate cannabis with freedom of choice, coping with demands
of self-realization, achievement and happiness. They conclude
that societal tendencies to frame cannabis as “forbidden
fruit” enhance positive attitudes toward cannabis.
In processes of liberalization, legalization and normaliza-
tion, gender and age are powerful mediators that need to be
considered. For instance, there are important gender differen-
ces in perceptions and experiences of cannabis use. A paper
in this special issue reveals that in Mexico, despite having
significantly liberalized legislation of late, there still remains a
persisting arrangement of rigid cultural patterns (Agoff et al.,
2022). While men who use cannabis may experience fewer
legal problems and encounters with the police, women who
use cannabis are likely to continue to be culturally and
socially stigmatized (see also Ugwu & Dumbili, 2022). Along
with the articles from Africa and Eastern Europe, it contrib-
utes to nuancing and expanding contemporary research by
including new contexts where, for example, gender differen-
ces can be more pronounced. Age problematizes and
changes the societal perception of cannabis use as well. A
study from the US (Staton et al., 2022) examined the influen-
ces and perceived outcomes of older adults’ cannabis use.
They found that the cannabis subculture was only relevant
for a few, while medical culture, physical age effects, and
prior opioid use were more important. Although social cate-
gories are covered in contemporary cannabis literature, stud-
ies of their intersectionality, or how for example race, class,
gender, age, sexual orientation, etc. intersect regarding can-
nabis use and cannabis culture is research deserving of fur-
ther attention.
DRUGS: EDUCATION, PREVENTION AND POLICY 319
New regulatory changes unveil contradictions in regard to
how cannabis is treated within neoliberal capitalism. Letting
the big cannabis industry into an established culture of
small-scale growers influences and changes grassroots social
movements and cannabis cultures. Relatedly, another study
from the US reveals some of the shortcomings and tensions
within Michigan’s newly regulated medical cannabis market
(Reid, 2022). The research demonstrates and discusses some
of the problems that arose during this process with particular
attention to how the reforms affected medical cannabis
patients in the state. The study illustrates the benefits of crit-
ically analyzing the effects of cannabis liberalization, while
also taking into account the influence of culture. Similarly,
cannabis supply and cultures are interwoven with the devel-
opments in the digital sphere and in new markets. Cannabis
features on the surface web and the users meander or disre-
gard the risks associated with use, referring to the estab-
lished cannabis cultural meanings. A study from Australia
(Childs et al., 2022) explores the digital modality found in
LeafedOut, a popular internet website, that provides a con-
duit for local cannabis exchanges. They found that actors
neutralized the perceived risks of drug supply and developed
new forms of drug market trust using this surface
web platform.
The articles in this special issue mentioned above are all
firmly embedded in specific societal or national contexts. Our
issue also includes two more general papers, drawing on
examples from multiple settings and countries. The emer-
gence of synthetic cannabinoids is another case of unsoli-
cited consequences of the prohibitionist and punitive
policies. Being criminalized, heavily stigmatized, and as a
result of the drive for increased potency, constantly riskier for
the vulnerable populations, the synthetic cannabinoids can
be seen as a twisted co-produced result of assemblage of
meanings associated with cannabis cultures and the realms
of the drug scene combining of illegal markets and question-
able policies. Hutton (2022) seeks to explore shifting intoxica-
tions with synthetic cannabinoids, such as “spice,” and
discusses debates about stigma and the co-production of
knowledge about drugs and their users. Finally, Wheeldon
(2022) argues that criminology has a lot to offer cannabis
research and vice versa. The study gives another critical
insight into the transforming landscape of cannabis. Calling
for cannabis criminology, the authors deconstruct “illusory
reforms” that reproduce existing inequalities by reinforcing
stigma through prohibitionist thinking. It results in racialized
policing, coercive treatment and exploitation of the
Global South.
Conclusion
This special issue was conceived as part of the
Erasmus þ project "Drug Abuse Prevention for Youth” (DAPY)
co-funded by the Turkish National Agency and the European
Union and involving institutions and researchers from Turkey,
Norway, Poland and Portugal. In addition to academic out-
puts, such as this special issue, the aim of the project was to
raise awareness among young people and to prevent drug
320 M. WANKE ET AL.
use by creating a training module and short films (see
dapy.org). Through workshops, academic meetings and
attempts at co-creating material that can inform current or
potential cannabis users about the drug, it soon became
clear to us that cannabis was not one thing. Rather, it differed
significantly depending upon national, cultural, and legisla-
tive contexts – as well as with age, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Discussing how to best inform young people about cannabis,
we constantly ended up in debates that revealed how we
spoke and where we spoke from, as well as our positioning
in different societal, cultural and cannabis market contexts. It
is some of the insights from these discussions that we hope
to bring with us into this special issue.
The studies in this special issue originate from countries
where liberalization of markets and cultural appropriation of
cannabis is at very different stages. With cannabis as a source
of strong cultural meanings, all of them involve stigma and
tensions connected to shifting legal status. The values and
meanings associated with cannabis constantly relate to the
dynamically changing cannabis landscape, both locally and
globally. The differences between various countries, and
within them—resulting from divergent cultures, cannabis
markets and social and institutional adaptation to the liberal-
ization of cannabis, induce inequalities and conflict. New
drug trends and cultures petrify some while driving others
towards creating new forms of stability and cultural hom-
ology, as seen for example in the case of people using can-
nabis in Nigeria, Latvia and Poland in this special issue.
Despite changes, people who use cannabis often find them-
selves in vulnerable positions, prone to fluid and unpredict-
able changes, and new subtle (or less subtle) forms of
stigmatization and repression.
Many of the Western assumptions about how youth
define cannabis are inaccurate or erroneous for cultural con-
texts where drugs are highly tabooed; coming of age is char-
acterized by drastically gendered trajectories, and families
mediate the potential stigma of drug use extensively. With
increasingly interconnected and multicultural societies, any
application of cannabis scholarship must account for the
nature of the diverse and different cultural appropriations of
cannabis (Fischer et al., 2022). With this special issue, we call
for critical cannabis studies from a variety of positions and
contexts. Cannabis may be the least stigmatized of the illicit
drugs, but it heralds changes in moral, legal and interactional
orders of societies, residually reproducing stigma and injust-
ice, and hence represents a fascinating case for studying
both continuity and change.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This Editorial and the Editors’ work on the special issue was part of the
project “DAPY: Drug Abuse Prevention for Youth” (2019-3-TR01-KA205-
079609). The European Commission’s support for the production of this
publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which
reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be made of the information con-
tained therein.
ORCID
Michał Wanke http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0413-9838
Sveinung Sandberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1639-6164
Ruken Macit http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9622-2630
Hakan G€ulerce http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3601-5725
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Michał Wanke
Department of Cultural Studies, University of Opole, Opole,
Poland
michal.wanke@uni.opole.pl
Sveinung Sandberg
Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Ruken Macit and Hakan Gu €lerce
Department of Sociology, Harran University, Şanlıurfa, Turkey
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