“Where Commerce Meets a Revolution” the Complex Relationship Between the Marijuana Legalization Movement and the Cannabis Industry

Abstract

Abstract “Where Commerce Meets a Revolution” is the motto of the National Cannabis Industry Association and its annual meetings. “Commerce” clearly refers to the developing for-profit cannabis industry. “Revolution” refers to the ongoing legalization of the drug. “Meets” is more ambiguous: It may suggest an encounter between two similar things, a possible clash of opposites, or something in between. The ambiguity here provides an opportunity to examine how a social movement that understood itself as promoting freedom and social justice thinks about and engages a profit-making industry that its own success has created, acknowledging conflicting values, while also trying to find ways to manage this conflict. Drawing on interviews with major movement actors, I use the concepts of institutional logics and institutional entrepreneurship to examine the relationship between the legalization movement and the cannabis industry.