Rapidly Changing Marijuana Policy and Its Impact on Communities and Stakeholders

• In Event: 055 - Regular Session. Health Policy

Abstract

The literature provides conflicting reports on the harms and/or benefits of marijuana. Rapidly changing marijuana policy across the U.S. landscape calls not only for more research but also for an explanation of incompatible forecasts on the impact on communities and stakeholders. Health care professionals and marijuana entrepreneurs are two stakeholder groups who have much to gain or lose depending on how medical marijuana policy is developed and implemented. In this paper, we approach this topic with a focus on the situated practices that impact members of these two stakeholder groups in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After Massachusetts passed a medical marijuana legalization bill in 2012, we took advantage of this natural social experiment to conduct a longitudinal study on the impact of policy change on norms, attitudes, and behaviors. In this paper/presentation we report the findings of health care professionals and marijuana dispensary entrepreneurs.
Using qualitative methods that included ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, multiple sources of data were collected. Field notes collected at public meetings, during community fieldwork, and through media and Internet networking supplemented the six interviews with marijuana dispensary entrepreneurs and seven health care professionals.
We found that the themes of transparency, communication, and education were expressed as important and needed, but a predicted lack of a comprehensive education plan for all stakeholders presents a gap.
The insights provided here can help policy makers who are now developing marijuana policy or who will be developing such policies in the future as more US states implement marijuana legalization.

Authors

• Aukje Lamonica, Southern Connecticut State University

• Miriam W. Boeri, Bentley University

• Tim Anderson, Bentley University