Because of this closed network of potential buyers and smoking their own product, they only have enough money to purchase cannabis in small increments. This puts them in a situation where they don’t make much, if any, money at all. Thus, many cannabis sellers quickly resign themselves to the status of “helper,” part-time dealer, or simply a user that sells to smoke for free.Another facet that I found unique about the group is that none of them considered themselves drug dealers. Some referred to themselves as “herbalists,” some called themselves “helpers,” but none would call themselves drug dealers or refer to cannabis as a drug. They refused to use the term drug dealer or drug because of the negative connotations associated with them. They would frequently refer to their clients or customers as “patients” even though they admitted that only some of the visitors to the dispensary were actual medical patients. Moreover, they considered the act of selling to be helping. The Kings, as discussed prior, believed that cannabis could cure all the evils of the world so any instance of selling to an individual would be an instance of helping them or helping the world. This is in direct contrast to the more economic motivations discussed by the various criminological theories of drug selling . Back to the original questions of this dissertation, why do these users smoke sell and sell and how do they understand those processes. What I found was mostly inconsistent with the criminological theories prominent within the discipline. I found no instances of structural and social strain that lead to innovation. Nor did I find evidence of social disorganization among the Kings or their neighborhood. Rather, industrical drying racks what I found was a group of individuals who had an understanding of what cannabis is, does, and can be that was radically different than mainstream social conceptions of this plant.

Although many will be quick to dismiss the act of smoking cannabis as nothing more than a juvenile stoner act practiced by a group pot smoking hippies, mainstream culture heavily influences our outsider perception of this substance. In order to truly understand the practice of drug using and selling, it is important to take an interactionist and culturally relativistic understanding to this practice. Thus, we can see that meaning, interpretation and action is not a simple universal understanding. Instead, interpretation and meaning is socially constructed just as the Kings would suggest our social world is. Given the large and significant number of cannabis users in the United States today , the fact that more research on cannabis users motivations is not so scant is astounding. Moreover given the radical social and legislative changes going on in the U.S. today, the lack of research that examines the motivations of cannabis use and cannabis dealers is even more flabbergasting. Given the social significance that hallucinogens have held throughout history and the significance and social impact of the war on drugs, I would assume that researchers would seek to move beyond the old moralistic criminal control and pathological medical theories. Considering the overwhelming evidence of the effectiveness of cannabis for treating a myriad of diseases, and the fact that many states, four as of this writing, and the District of Columbia, have legalized recreational use of cannabis it is perplexing that within the field of criminology we still hold onto theories of drug use that are clearly no longer suitable in our modern era. Moreover, it is even more perplexing that much of the drug literature has stayed focused on problematic drug use to the detriment of cultural and social interpretations. Indeed, the majority of drug use in the U.S. is recreational and non-problematic. The majority of drug users are recreational users. Only a small percentage of the drug sing population uses the heavy drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroine. Moreover, only a small percentage of the hard drug using population develops serious addiction patterns. Likewise, by conceptualizing drug use as a criminal problem in need of control, and by conceptualizing users as deviants, criminals and delinquents, we as researchers, criminologists and sociologists have unwittingly, or wittingly, been complacent in the very type of thinking that produces systematic racist and classist systems of inequality. It was the goal of this dissertation to counter our moralistic and criminological assumptions about drugs, drug users and drug sellers by focusing on the life history, practices and motivations of a unique group of cannabis users, growers and sellers.

Through ethnographic and interview methodology, I sought to illustrate an understudied yet culturally and socially relevant context of cannabis use. From the viewpoint of users, growers and sellers of these substances, the criminal justice system is but an intruder on the lives of people. One, it seeks to create a paradigm shift in our understanding of drug use and drug users. Two, it contributes to the interactionist and cultural understanding of drug use by examining the social and spiritual motivations of users instead of imposing moralistic judgements. And three, it investigates an under examined and understudied phenomenon of suburban semi-legal drug markets. The findings from this study counter many of the common misconceptions about drug users and sellers. They contradict Merton’s anomie theory as at no point did the Kings indicate that they perceived that legitimate economic opportunities were blocked to them. Likewise, when asked about their motivations to start selling their answers were more altruistic and cultural than economic. The neighborhood I studied did not resemble a ghetto and none of the members discussed depression or anything of that nature that would make me believe that their use was a coping mechanism to deal with the drudgery of life. This study contributed to sociological theories of money making in the sense that some of the members, High-C and TBC in particular, saw cannabis as a way to ball and make money. Like Dohan’s study, they saw cannabis as a means of upward mobility and a way to increase their status. Unfortunately, much like the individuals in Dohan’s study, the Kings are not rich and it is questionable whether or not selling cannabis is a more effective method of making money than a good paying nine-to-five job. Rather, what I found was a complex system of beliefs and rituals that related to cannabis that rival any cultural belief system. The Kings, influenced by the Rastafarian religion and the hippy movement of the sixties, hold a set of beliefs about the healing and spiritual power of cannabis that made it appear that they believed God created the plant for humans to use. They believe the hallucinogenic power of the plant was not merely coincidental.

They believe there was a co-evolutionary symbiotic relationship that humans held with marijuana; marijuana shows humans reality, spurs human creativity, intelligence, and consciousness and cures physical and social ills, and in return, humans spread the genes of the cannabis species throughout the world. By documenting the actual motivations and perceptions of the Kings, I seek to shift our understanding that portrays it as a public health or criminal activity to a more social, spiritual and cultural understanding. Lastly, this study contributed to our understanding of suburban drug markets and the effect of legalization and regulation of drug markets. Unfortunately, the few studies that examine the operation of drug markets in the United States tend to focus on banal characteristics such as whether or not the market is indoor or outdoor and whether or not it is an open or closed market. This dissertation advances our understanding of the cannabis networks that grow, transport and distribute this plant. Moreover, commercial greenhouse benches it illuminates what occurs to markets that are in the precarious situation of being semi-legal, which has been previously under-studied by scholars. By looking at the operation of semi-legal drug markets it shows that legalization has had and overwhelmingly positive impact in reducing drug related crimes. Likewise, it illustrates the unique and ingenious mechanism dealers use to skirt around the laws. The dissertation looked at prices, markups, potency and new types of routes of administration . Likewise, it looks at the various mechanisms used to stay compliant the new laws that regulate the use and distribution of cannabis. This contributes to our understanding of drug markets and how bureaucratic organizations operate by structuring a division of labor designed to stay compliant with the ever changing laws. Additionally, this dissertation looks at the various mechanisms used by county and cities to curb the legality of the cannabis industry.Although not the original goal of this dissertation, one would be remiss to not discuss the racial, classist and gendered implications of the shift in cannabis laws in the United States. As it was not germane to my main research questions, I only breifly touched upon the racialized and gendered nature of the dispensary. I discussed how the female bud tenders emotional and sexual labor is exploited to draw in and maintain the loyalty of young male customers. I also touched upon how the dispensary itself is broken down in a racialized manner with a black security workhorse and a white male running the dispensary. The Kings themselves do not openly exhibit racial bias, to my knowledge, and they do not maliciously sexualize women, to my knowledge. Rather, their behavior mirrors trends that have been occurring in the marijuana industry since its inception. In an attempt to keep up with competition, the Kings employ physically attractive female bud tenders to work at their dispensary. This is common as most job ads for bud tenders request a photo to be sent with the application. This allows potential employers to filter out men and unattractive women. Because the job is technically “volunteer work,” anti-discrimination laws typically do not apply to this industry.One recent study on the recreational cannabis industry in the state of Washington found that the marijuana industry is mostly controlled by white males. An analysis showed that in the state of Washington, about 60% of individuals that work in Seattle dispensaries are white. However, it is important to note that this approximately reflects the racial demographics of the city. The proportion of business owners to regular employees is actually much more relevant to whether and how racial inequalities shape the industry. While the study conducted by the pot blog found that approximately forty percent of individuals that work in Washington’s dispensaries are people of color, only about nine percent of those working in production and processing are non-white . Going beyond simple statistics, when looking at business ownership in the state of Washington, one can see a clear racial hierarchy emerging. When the state of Washington did the lottery for recreational licenses , there was not a single African-American winner . Thus, as we see in the corporate world and practically every other American social institution, racial hierarchy is emerging in the legal cannabis industry. For this reason many observers suggest that the legalization of marijuana has led to a whitening of the cannabis industry. It is important to note that although recreational cannabis use is legal in some states, there are still various barriers to entry into the market in these states and selling cannabis on the street corner is still very much illegal. Thus, while black and brown Americans are being locked up across the country for selling drugs, a select group of rich white Americans are raking in profits and becoming millionaires for the exact same act.Considering the fact that many states have ballot propositions to legalize the recreational use of cannabis , and the decreasing social stigma of the cannabis industry, it is important to critically analyze the racial, class and gendered dynamics of this industry. It is furthermore important that we do not reproduce the same inequality that legalization seeks to dismantle and afford former criminals prosecuted for non-violent marijuana-related crimes the same rights as other American citizens. For it is those disenfranchised and dispossessed that have the most to gain if legalization was truly an open market. Those disenfranchised and dispossessed can pull their years of experience together and compete with big cannabusiness.I think another interesting future direction for cannabis research would be to examine the motivation of cannabis users both before and after its legalization.