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Geography of Cannabis: Do (de)criminalization studies assay legal weed fairly?
Abstract:
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The people and places transitioning to legal cannabis production are directly impacted by the contexts and characteristics of the complex socio-ecological systems (SES) where they are located. These systems may be partially defined by a language that elicits credibility or distrust, but little is known about the relationship between language and legalization, especially in its infancy. The vernaculars and typologies used in cannabis literature may reveal insights into the potency of clandestine framing found in research today. The rise in legal cannabis regimes provides new pathways to study cannabis as both practice and industry, and this study presents a novel framework for a systematic literature review (SLR) and analysis of the vernacular embodied within the cannabis legalization corpus. The bibliographic database was curated using stepwise selection criteria (n=2,348) applied to all of peer-reviewed articles published since 2012, the year Colorado state passed widespread legalization laws. Contextual differences in lexical associations can be made as well as quantified with data science techniques. In this framework, the methodological suite includes statistical analysis of word frequencies and associations, and natural language processing (NLP) word embeddings to contextualize and describe them. Although widespread legalization campaigns are increasing, we hypothesize that a systematic approach to analyze post-prohibition cannabis literature may demonstrate that regulations cannot change historical worldviews. New regulatory regimes may have (de)criminalized acts of cannabis production; however, if the ecological, economic, and social dialect of the cannabis industry evokes a tone of distrust and discrimination, what does it really mean to be <i>legal</i>?</p>
Keywords: Cannabis, legalization, regulation, land use, social ecological systems, implementation
Authors:
Chevon C Holmes, University of California, Davis; Submitting Author / Primary Presenter
Tommy Pham, University of California, Davis; Co-Author (this author will not present)
Rebecca R Hernandez, University of California, Davis; Co-Author (this author will not present)
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Geography of Cannabis: Do (de)criminalization studies assay legal weed fairly?
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In-Person Paper Abstract