Backpedaling Through Propaganda: What Will Criminology Have To Offer If Marijuana Becomes Legal?

• In Event: Everything You Can Imagine Is Real: Jock Young’s Legacy on Othering in a Divided Society

Abstract

This paper explores the nexus between researching the community-level impact of medical marijuana dispensaries, the laws criminalizing the substance, and the extant medical literature on the negative physiological repercussions of marijuana. The discussion will also focus on what the medical community is contributing to the criminological debate, where the criminological literature stands in regard to marijuana and decriminalization, and to what extent criminology will influence policymaking if the decriminalization trend continues. The analysis skirts the “blurred and transgressive line between folk devils and folk heroes” (Young, 2011:255) and furthers a holistic approach to understanding the cultural impetus surrounding the use of marijuana in late modern American society.

Author

• Edward L. W. Green, Kansas State University