Growing cannabis in Denmark for personal use and social supply

• In Event: Drug Use and Social Supply Around the Globe

Abstract

Domestic cannabis cultivation has increased in many European countries. While developments have occurred in large scale cannabis production, developments in growing cannabis for personal use and/or social supply have also taken place. Although the growing of a few cannabis plants for personal or medical use has been legalized in some European countries, in most European countries, including Denmark, it is still illegal. Using data from two online surveys in 2008 and 2012 on cannabis cultivation in Denmark, and 68 qualitative interviews, this paper examines the issue of growing cannabis for social supply. We will discuss growers’ perceptions of and reported practices of social supply. We will explore how growing cannabis has become an exchange phenomenon in a classical anthropological sense, based on norms, values, and practices that influence sociality and social belonging. More specifically, we will thus focus on why our respondents grow cannabis, why and how they use it, as well as the social contexts in which they grow and use cannabis. We will follow recent developments within cultural criminology, which examine drug markets as embedded in particular socio-cultural contexts. This type of analysis suggests that drug markets are much more diverse and complex than traditionally conceptualized.

Authors

• Vibeke Asmussen Frank, Aarhus University, Denmark

• Helle Vibeke Dahl, Aarhus University, Denmark