The Quantification of Cannabis Use Disorder and the Homogenization of Democracy

• In Event: Science, Knowledge & Technology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Distinguishing difference: classification, standardization, and racialization

Abstract

The partial legalization of recreational cannabis in the US has brought renewed attention to an old question: just how harmful is marijuana, exactly? While drug policy debates have always involved attempts to quantify the risks of intoxicant use, recent cannabis policy discussions have been marked by two unique features. First, officials at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and other prominent opponents of cannabis legalization have emphasized concerns about the effect of marijuana on the personality, moral character, and interpersonal relationships of its users, rather than the drug’s inherent toxicity or overdose risk. The relatively nebulous nature of these harms has produced unique obstacles to the quantification of cannabis use risks, and these obstacles have spurred innovations in the conceptualization and measurement of drug hazards generally and substance use disorder in particular. Second, and relatedly, recent debates have been shaped by the availability of new forms of data about cannabis use—nationally representative self-report surveys—and new ways of understanding the relationship between drug harms, drug users, and drug policy. I analyze how the most important data source on drug use in the US, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), attempts to quantify the risks of cannabis use, how its operationalization of marijuana addiction has changed over time, and how advocates employ NSDUH findings to argue against the legalization of cannabis. I build upon risk society theory and scholarship on the construction of social problems and the politics of quantification, arguing that the NSDUH exemplifies an underappreciated implication of the “riskification” of politics: the way that quantifications of risk can not only “black-box” assumptions about morality and normality but also reduce distinct questions about the prerogatives of states and the proper role of democratic deliberation in public policy making to a homogeneous politics of harm avoidance.

Author

• Austin Jenkins, Northwestern University