Wacky Tobaccy: Reexamining Durkheim's Social Facts

• In Event: The Politics of Punishment

Abstract

Throughout the last one hundred years, cultural developments and political movements have played an integral role in influencing the perception of marijuana and attitudes toward its regulation. While the state and society’s sentiments were once thoroughly opposed to the legitimation and legalization of marijuana consumption, the collective conscience has transformed. Presently, public support for the legalization of marijuana is at its peak in the United States. This transformation in public attitudes occurred somewhat unexpectedly and relatively quickly. Accumulating polling evidence finds that for Americans marijuana use has become normative; abstention is now aberrant. These moral and legal revolutions bear some correspondence to these changing consumption patterns. The present paper will apply Durkheim’s functionalist approach to determine the social and moral foundations of marijuana laws. The underpinnings of law as framework for sustaining solidarity and establishing social facts can be understood as a Durkheimian dialog between shifting moral and legal standards.

Author

• Stephanie Albertson, Indiana University Southeast