Medical Marijuana and Social Control: Escaping Criminalization and Embracing Medicalization

The medicalization of marijuana represents an evolving trend across the United States, yet researchers have yet to focus on the reasons users obtain cannabis licenses or the changing methods of State control that emerge in the legal-medicalized industry. In this article I draw on 40 in-depth interviews and participant observation with undergraduate cardholders to examine college students' motivations to get medical marijuana cards and the process of social learning and resocialization they undergo in shifting away from an illicit and unregulated market to one that is State-sanctioned and controlled. I analyze the medicalization of cannabis as part of a “new culture of crime control” (Garland 2001 ——— . 2001 . The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society . Chicago , IL : The University of Chicago Press . Google Scholar]), showing how, in contrast to criminalization, the legal-medical model offers the State potent forms of social control at the structural, cultural, and interactional levels of society. I conclude with a discussion of the benefits gained by the State from this legal-medicalization on both the effects and causes of crime.