‘I cannot stop taking weed cos it makes me survive’: cannabis use, criminal sanctions and users’ experiences in Nigeria

References

• Amos, A., Wiltshire, S., Bostock, Y., Haw, S., McNeill, A. (2004). ‘You can’t go without a fag … you need it for your hash’ – a qualitative exploration of smoking, cannabis and young people. Addiction, 99(1), 77–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2004.00531.x
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Beck, K. H., Caldeira, K. M., Vincent, K. B., O'Grady, K. E., Wish, E. D., & Arria, A. M. (2009). The social context of cannabis use: Relationship to cannabis use disorders and depressive symptoms among college students. Addictive Behaviors, 34(9), 764–768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2009.05.001
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Bell, R., Pavis, S., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Amos, A. (1998). Young men’s use of cannabis: Exploring changes in meaning and context over time. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 5, 141–155. https://doi.org/10.3109/09687639809006680
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Borroffka, A. (1966). Mental illness and Indian Hemp in Lagos. East African Medical Journal, 43(9), 377.
   PubMedGoogle Scholar
• Bourgois, P. (2003). Crack and the political economy of suffering. Addiction Research & Theory, 11, 31–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/1606635021000021322
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. [Database] https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
   Google Scholar
• Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Cope, N. (2000). Drug use in prison: The experience of young offenders. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 7(4), 355–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/dep.7.4.355.366
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Dahl, S. L., & Sandberg, S. (2015). Female cannabis users and new masculinities: The gendering of cannabis use. Sociology, 49(4), 696–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038514547896
   Google Scholar
• Dirisu, O., Shickle, D., & Elsey, H. (2019). Perspectives of young cannabis users within the Nigerian policy context: The paradox of criminalization as a deterrence strategy. Journal of Substance Use, 24(1), 73–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2018.1510052
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Drummond, C. (2002). Cannabis control: costs outweigh the benefits. British Medical Journal, 324(12), 105–106.
   Google Scholar
• Dumbili, E. W. (2020). Cannabis normalization among young adults in a Nigerian City. Journal of Drug Issues, 50(3), 286–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022042620912805
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Eligh, J. (2019). The evolution of illicit drug markets and drug policy in Africa. ENACT Report. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. https://enact-africa.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2019-06-30-continental-report-3-3.pdf
   Google Scholar
• Engel, L. B., Bright, S. J., Barratt, M. J., & Allen, M. M. (2020). Positive drug stories: Possibilities for agency and positive subjectivity for harm reduction. Addiction Research & Theory, 29(5), 363–371. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2020.1837781.
   Google Scholar
• Fergusson, D. M., Swain-Campbell, N. R., & Horwood, L. J. (2003). Arrests and convictions for cannabis-related offences in New Zealand birth cohorts. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 70(1), 53–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0376-8716(02)00336-8
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Fletcher, A., Bonell, C., Sorhaindo, A., & Rhodes, T. (2009). Cannabis use and ‘safe’ identities in an inner-city school risk environment. International Journal of Drug Policy, 20(3), 244–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2008.08.006
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Fossey, E., Harvey, C., McDermott, F., & Davidson, L. (2002). Understanding and evaluating qualitative research. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 36(6), 717–732. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1440-1614.2002.01100.x
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hall, W., & Degenhardt, L. (2009). Adverse health effects of non-medical cannabis use. The Lancet, 374(9698), 1383–1391. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61037-0
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hall, W., & Pacula, R. L. (2003). Cannabis use and dependence: Policy health and the public policy. Cambridge University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Hamdi, E., Sabry, N., Sedrak, A., Khowailed, A., Loza, N., Rabie, M., & Ramy, H. (2016). Sociodemographic indicators of substance use and abuse in Egypt. Journal of Addiction Prevention, 4(1).
   Google Scholar
• Hammersley, R., & Leon, V. (2006). Patterns of cannabis use and positive and negative experiences of use amongst university students. Addiction Research & Theory, 14(2), 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066350500453309
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hough, M. (2002). Drug user treatment within a criminal justice context. Substance Use & Misuse, 37(8–10), 985–996. https://doi.org/10.1081/ja-120004162
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hunt, G. P., Evans, K., & Kares, F. (2007). Drug use and meanings of risk and pleasure. Journal of Youth Studies, 10(1), 73–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676260600983668
   Google Scholar
• Keene, J. (1997). Drug misuse in prison: Views from inside: A qualitative study of prison staff and inmates. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 36(1), 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2311.00037
   Google Scholar
• Kerr, T., Marshall, B. D., Miller, C., Shannon, K., Zhang, R., Montaner, J. S., & Wood, E. (2009). Injecting drug use among street-involved youths in a Canadian setting. BMC Public Health, 9(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-9-171
   Google Scholar
• Kerr, T., Small, W., & Wood, E. (2005). The public health and social impacts of drug market enforcement: A review of the evidence. International Journal of Drug Policy, 16(4), 210–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2005.04.005
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Klantschnig, G. (2009). The politics of law enforcement in Nigeria: Lessons from the war on drugs. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 47(4), 529–549. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X09990036
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Klantschnig, G. (2014). Histories of cannabis use and control in Nigeria, 1927–1967. In G. Klantschnig, N. Carrier, & C. Ambler (Eds.), Drugs in Africa: Histories and ethnographies of use, trade and control (pp. 69–88). Palgrave Macmillan.
   Google Scholar
• Klein, A. (1999). Nigeria and the drugs war. Review of African Political Economy, 26(79), 51–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056249908704360
   Google Scholar
• Klein, A. (2001). “Have a piss, drink ogogoro, smoke lgbo, but don’t take gbana” -Hard and soft drugs in Nigeria: A critical comparison of official policies and the view on the street. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 33(2), 111–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2001.10400476
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kolind, T. (2015). Drugs and discretionary power in prisons: The officer’s perspective. The International Journal on Drug Policy, 26(9), 799–807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.04.014
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kornbluh, M. (2015). Combatting challenges to establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12(4), 397–414. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2015.1021941
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Linneberg, M. S., & Korsgaard, S. (2019). Coding qualitative data: A synthesis guiding the novice. Qualitative Research Journal, 19(3), 259–270. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-12-2018-0012
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Maher, L., & Dixon, D. (1999). Policing and public health: Law enforcement and harm minimization in a street-level drug market. British Journal of Criminology, 39(4), 488–512. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/39.4.488
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Maher, L., & Dixon, D. (2001). The cost of crackdowns: Policing Cabramatta’s heroin market. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 13(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10345329.2001.12036213
   Google Scholar
• Mason, W. (2020). ‘No one learned’: Interpreting a drugs crackdown operation and its consequences through the ‘lens’ of social harm. British Journal of Criminology, 60(2), 382–402.
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Mjåland, K. (2016). Exploring prison drug use in the context of prison-based drug rehabilitation. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 23(2), 154–162. https://doi.org/10.3109/09687637.2015.1136265
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Moeller, K. (2009). Police crackdown on Christiania in Copenhagen. Crime, Law and Social Change, 52(4), 337–345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-008-9185-6
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Moeller, K. (2010). Unintended negative social effects from policing cannabis in Copenhagen? Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 27(2), 183–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/145507251002700204
   Google Scholar
• Monaghan, G., & Bewley-Taylor, D. (2013). Practical implications of policing alternatives to arrest and prosecution for minor cannabis offences. International Drug Policy Consortium.
   Google Scholar
• Morris, C. (2018). ‘You can’t stand on a corner and talk about it…’: Medicinal cannabis use, impression management and the analytical status of interviews. Methodological Innovations, 11(1), 205979911876842. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799118768422
   Google Scholar
• National Bureau of Statistics (2010). National poverty rates for Nigeria: 2003–2004 (Revised) and 2009–2010. NBS.
   Google Scholar
• National Bureau of Statistics and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2018). Drug use in Nigeria 2018. UNODC.
   Google Scholar
• Nelson, E. E. (2018). Police crackdowns, structural violence and impact on the well-being of street cannabis users in a Nigerian city. The International Journal on Drug Policy, 54, 114–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.01.012
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Nelson, E. E. (2021). ‘I take it to relax… and chill’: Perspectives on cannabis use from Nigerian young adults. Addiction Research & Theory, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.1895125
   Google Scholar
• Nnam, M. U., Owan, E. J., Idike, A. N., Ibiam, O. E., Agboti, C. I., Kanu, C., & Okechukwu, G. P. (2020). Voices from ‘Igbo Bunks’: A qualitative study of the complicity of law-enforcement agents in marijuana use in a Nigerian community. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 62, 100411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2020.100411
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Obot, I. S. (2004). Assessing Nigeria’s drug control policy, 1994–2000. International Journal of Drug Policy, 15(1), 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0955-3959(03)00110-5
   Google Scholar
• Parker, H., Aldridge, J., & Measham, F. (1998). Illegal leisure – The normalization of adolescent recreational drug use. Routledge.
   Google Scholar
• Pedersen, W. (2009). Cannabis use: Subcultural opposition or social marginality? A population-based longitudinal study. Acta Sociologica, 52(2), 135–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699309104001
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Peltzer, K., & Phaswana-Mafuya, N. (2018). Drug use among youth and adults in a population-based survey in South Africa. South African Journal of Psychiatry, 24(0), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v24i0.1139
   Google Scholar
• Penfold, C., Turnbull, P. J., & Webster, R. (2005). Tackling prison drug markets: An exploratory qualitative study. Home Office.
   Google Scholar
• Ratcliffe, J. H. (2004). The hotspot matrix: A framework for the spatio-temporal targeting of crime reduction. Police Practice & Research: An International Journal, 5(1), 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/1561426042000191305
   Google Scholar
• Rhodes, T., Platt, L., Sarang, A., Vlasov, A., Mikhailova, L., & Monaghan, G. (2006). Street policing, injecting drug use and harm reduction in a Russian city: A qualitative study of police perspectives. Journal of Urban Health, 83(5), 911–925. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-006-9085-y
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Ritter, C., Broers, B., & Elger, B. S. (2013). Cannabis use in a Swiss male prison: Qualitative study exploring detainees’ and staffs’ perspectives. International Journal of Drug Policy, 24(6), 573–578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2013.05.001
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Room, R. (2005). Stigma, social inequality and alcohol and drug use. Drug and Alcohol Review, 24(2), 143–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/09595230500102434
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Room, R., Fischer, B., Hall, W., Reuter, P., & Lenton, S. (2010). Cannabis policy: Moving beyond stalemate. Oxford University Press.
   Google Scholar
• Salaam, A. O., & Brown, J. (2012). Lagos “area boys”, substance usage and potential risk factors. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 10(1), 83–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-010-9299-9
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Sandberg, S. (2012). Is cannabis use normalized, celebrated or neutralized? Analysing talk as action. Addiction Research & Theory, 20(5), 372–381. https://doi.org/10.3109/16066359.2011.638147
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Scott, M. (2016). Benefits and consequences of police crackdowns. Response Guides Series No 1. Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, US Department of Justice.
   Google Scholar
• Selfridge, M., Mitchell, L., Greer, A., Macdonald, S., & Pauly, B. (2020). “Accidental Intimacies”: Reconsidering bodily encounters between police and young people who use drugs. Contemporary Drug Problems, 47(3), 231–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091450920929101
   Google Scholar
• Semaan, S. (2010). Time-space sampling and respondent-driven sampling with hard-to-reach populations. Methodological Innovations Online, 5(2), 60.1–75. https://doi.org/10.4256/mio.2010.0019
   Google Scholar
• Shanahan, M., Hughes, C. E., McSweeney, T., & Griffin, B. A. (2017). Alternate policing strategies: Cost-effectiveness of cautioning for cannabis offences. The International Journal on Drug Policy, 41, 140–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.12.012
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Sherman, L. W. (1990). Police crackdowns: Initial and residual deterrence. Crime and Justice, 12, 1–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/449163
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Turnbull, P., Stimson, G., & Stillwell, G. (1994). Drugs in Prison. Avert.
   Google Scholar
• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2020). World drug report. UNODC.
   Google Scholar
• Williams, L., & Parker, H. (2001). Alcohol, cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine: Drugs of reasoned choice amongst young adults in England. International Journal of Drug Policy, 12(5-6), 397–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0955-3959(01)00104-9
   Google Scholar
• Wodak, A., Reinarman, C., Cohen, P. D. A., & Drummond, C. (2002). Cannabis control: Costs outweigh the benefits. For. BMJ (Clinical Research ed.), 324(7329), 105–106. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.324.7329.105
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar