Cannabis and criminology: A history of race, addiction, and inconvenient research

Abstract

While efforts to restrict the use of cannabis are more than a century old, policy liberalization is more recent. History suggests that the growing tolerance for cannabis will continue to be met with opposition. Cannabis policy has been trapped in a recurrent rotation from acceptance and increased use to hostility and expansive efforts to control those who consume it. This paper considers how historical criminology can uncover criminological artifacts to conceive, frame, and clarify cannabis criminalization, decriminalization, and liberalization. As a subject, cannabis was shaped by forces that had little to do with the plant itself, which led it to be socially constructed as evil, dangerous, or otherwise risky. We consider the history of cannabis through the lenses of race, addiction, and research and explore reports from five different countries on cannabis and criminal justice policy.