Lineaments of Cannabis Culture: Rules Regulating Use in Amsterdam and San Francisco

Abstract

This article presents data on the common‐sense rules by which cannabis users regulate their use. The data are drawn from a comparative study of representative samples of experienced cannabis users in two cities with many similarities but with different drug control regimes—Amsterdam, in the Netherlands (decriminalization), and San Francisco (criminalization). An extensive survey of experienced cannabis users in Amsterdam was replicated in San Francisco as a strategy for identifying differences in cannabis use patterns having to do with differences in drug control. Most respondents reported having such rules and applying them most of the time. These data indicate a patterned selectivity about when, where, with whom, and under what conditions experienced users found cannabis use appropriate and inappropriate. We suggest that these rules are key elements in a kind of etiquette that Becker called ‘user culture.’ Despite drug policy differences, we found overwhelming similarity in these rules across the two cities.

Keywords:

• Cannabis Use
• Marijuana Use
• Netherlands
• Drug Control
• User Culture
• Drug Use Patterns

Acknowledgments

Some of the data and arguments given in this paper were presented at the 15th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug‐Related Harm in Sydney, Australia, in April 2004, and at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, in August 2004. The authors would like to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Dutch Ministry of Health and the U.S. National Institute of Drug Abuse (grant #1 RO1 DA10501‐01A1), which made possible the research on which this paper is based. The analysis and conclusions given here do not necessarily reflect the views of those agencies.

Notes

[1] We use the botanically correct term ‘cannabis’ rather than the term ‘marijuana’ as used in the U.S., because cannabis is the term used for marijuana and the hashish made from it both in the Netherlands and in most other nations in the world.

[2] Foucault gives this definition: ‘[T]echnologies of the self … permit individuals to effect by their own means … a certain number of operations on their own bodies and selves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom …’ (1994, p. 225).

[3] Non‐English‐speaking Asian‐Americans were excluded because of the prohibitive costs of translating instruments and training interviewers in the many Chinese and other Asian languages found in San Francisco. This was not consequential, because national prevalence studies show that illicit drug use among Asian Americans is the lowest of any ethnic group (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, 1995), and because non‐English‐speakers are mostly elderly and thus least likely to be cannabis users. The instruments were, however, translated into Spanish, and bilingual interviewers conducted interviews whenever necessary.

[4] We note the possibility that our exclusionary examples may have skewed responses toward exclusionary rules.