The Social Re-Construction of Marijuana as Medicine

• In Event: 217 - Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01.

Abstract

Marijuana has become a “medicine by popular vote” (Bostwick 2012). As the US population rapidly approves medical marijuana state by state, community members are re-constructing their concept of marijuana use. Once much maligned, stigmatized, or ridiculed, the marijuana user is currently changing from an illegitimate role to a legitimate role for some (medical marijuana patients) but not for others. We took advantage of an ideal opportunity to collect real time data in Massachusetts while policy was being developed and implemented using ethnographic methods. In this paper we examine how marijuana is perceived by community stakeholders during rapid policy change with the goal to better understand the social re-construction of marijuana use and users. We employ a social construction perspective that states everything that passes for knowledge in society is socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann 1966). We are informed by Becker’s (1953) work on the social construction of a marijuana user, but look beyond social construction through face-to-face human interaction to examine a more complex and modern social construction of marijuana that includes the influence of the Internet. We find that marijuana, like addiction, has always had a somewhat conflicting conceptual construction that presents a dilemma for re-construction as medicine. During a time of changing drug policy, our understanding of addiction as a disease shapes the construction of marijuana as medicine. Whether this will inform the re-construction of marijuana as medicine is yet to be seen.

Authors

• Aukje Lamonica, Southern Connecticut State University

• Tim Anderson, Bentley University