Cannabis users and Homo Sovieticus. Stigma, culture, and delegitimization in Riga, Latvia

Abstract

Cannabis ‘formula stories’ are disproportionately conceptualized from the gaze of a few mostly high-income Anglo-American nations that not only shape their own narratives and policies of cannabis but are also influential abroad. Lack of research in other mostly non-English-speaking countries has translated into a gap in knowledge about what cannabis formula stories are adopted, and how stigma is conceptualized by cannabis users. Using semi-structured interviews with cannabis users, this paper gives the first insight into how cannabis stigma is constructed in the post-Soviet European Riga, Latvia. Analysis corroborates previous findings of the delegitimization strategies that cannabis users adopt to resist stigma. However, people who stigmatize cannabis use are constructed as Soviet-born and agency-stripped Homo Sovieticus, who perceives all cannabis users as physically discriminable ‘potheads.’ To avoid sanctions, cannabis users, as members of the generation that does possess agency, avoid appearing as potheads. Thus, the knowledge and considered evasion of symbols that adhere to societal discriminatory ideas about ‘pothead’ cannabis users represent users’ ‘secret knowledge’ and their functional relationship with a cannabis-disdaining society. The study demonstrates how exaggerated stories shift user attention away from reflections about consumption patterns and toward a concern for the critical capacity of exaggerated cannabis story disseminators.