Production, perceptions, and punishment: Restrictive deterrence in the context of cannabis cultivation

"I Sometimes Pretended to Get Groceries": Restrictive Deterrence in Drug Dealing

Despite steady progress in drug control work, drug-related crimes are ranked third in the total number of criminal cases in China. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 offenders who are now incarcerated for drug offenses, this paper examines the strategies employed by drug offenders to evade detection and mitigate their punishment for drug dealing. Their most frequently-used strategies focus on filtering out risky people, ensuring information asymmetry and knowing when to stop. Exploring how offenders adapt their behavior in response to punishment helps to further our understanding of crime commission and control.

Health, safety, and socioeconomic impacts of cannabis liberalization laws: An evidence and gap map

Background

Globally, cannabis laws and regulations are rapidly changing. Countries are increasingly permitting access to cannabis under various decriminalization, medicalization, and legalization laws. With strong economic, public health, and social justice incentives driving these domestic cannabis policy reforms, liberalization trends are bound to continue. However, despite a large and growing body of interdisciplinary research addressing the policy-relevant health, safety, and socioeconomic consequences of cannabis liberalization, there is a lack of robust primary and systematic research that comprehensively investigates the consequences of these reforms.

Objectives

This evidence and gap map (EGM) summarizes the empirical evidence on cannabis liberalization policies. Primary objectives were to develop a conceptual framework linking cannabis liberalization policies to relevant outcomes, descriptively summarize the empirical evidence, and identify areas of evidence concentration and gaps.

Search Methods

We comprehensively searched for eligible English-language empirical studies published across 23 academic databases and 11 gray literature sources through August 2020. Additions to the pool of potentially eligible studies from supplemental sources were made through November 2020.

Selection Criteria

The conceptual framework for this EGM draws upon a legal epidemiological perspective highlighting the causal effects of law and policy on population-level outcomes. Eligible interventions include policies that create or expand access to a legal or decriminalized supply of cannabis: comprehensive medical cannabis laws (MCLs), limited medical cannabidiol laws (CBDLs), recreational cannabis laws (RCLs), industrial hemp laws (IHLs), and decriminalization of cultivations laws (DCLs). Eligible outcomes include intermediate responses (i.e., attitudes/behaviors and markets/environments) and longer-term consequences (health, safety, and socioeconomic outcomes) of these laws.

Data Collection and Analysis

Both dual screening and dual data extraction were performed with third person deconfliction. Primary studies were appraised using the Maryland Scientific Methods Scale and systematic reviews were assessed using AMSTAR 2.

Main Results

The EGM includes 447 studies, comprising 438 primary studies and nine systematic reviews. Most research derives from the United States, with little research from other countries. By far, most cannabis liberalization research focuses on the effects of MCLs and RCLs. Studies targeting other laws-including CBDLs, IHLs, and DCLs-are relatively rare. Of the 113 distinct outcomes we documented, cannabis use was the single most frequently investigated. More than half these outcomes were addressed by three or fewer studies, highlighting substantial evidence gaps in the literature. The systematic evidence base is relatively small, comprising just seven completed reviews on cannabis use (3), opioid-related harms (3), and alcohol-related outcomes (1). Moreover, we have limited confidence in the reviews, as five were appraised as minimal quality and two as low quality.

Authors’ Conclusions

More primary and systematic research is needed to better understand the effects of cannabis liberalization laws on longer-term-and arguably more salient-health, safety, and socioeconomic outcomes. Since most research concerns MCLs and RCLs, there is a critical need for research on the societal impacts of industrial hemp production, medical CBD products, and decriminalized cannabis cultivation. Future research should also prioritize understanding the heterogeneous effects of these laws given differences in specific provisions and implementation across jurisdictions.

Home cannabis cultivation in the United States and differences by state-level policy, 2019-2020

Background: As of 2022, all but two U.S. states with adult-use cannabis laws also allow home cultivation. Home cultivation has the potential to support or oppose public health measures, and research in U.S. states is nascent.Objectives: 1) estimate the percentage of respondents who reported growing cannabis plants; 2) estimate the average number of plants grown; 3) examine the association between home cultivation, jurisdiction, and individual-level factors; and 4) examine the association between home cultivation and state-level policies in adult-use states.Methods: Repeat cross-sectional survey data come from U.S. respondents aged 21-65 in 2019 and 2020. Respondents were recruited through online commercial panels. Home cultivation rates were estimated among all U.S. respondents (n = 51,503; 46-52% male). Additional analyses were conducted on a sub-sample of respondents in states that allowed adult-use home cultivation (n = 29,100; 50% male).Results: A total of 6.8% and 7.3% of U.S. respondents reported home cultivation in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Respondents in states that allowed adult-use home cultivation had higher odds of reporting home cultivation than respondents in states without medical or adult-use cannabis laws (AOR = 1.48, 95% 1.26, 1.75). Among respondents in states that allowed adult-use home cultivation, the median number of plants that respondents reported growing was below state cultivation limits.Conclusion: Home cultivation rates in the U.S. were higher in states that allowed adult-use home cultivation; however, other evidence suggests these same states had higher rates predating adult-use legalization. Further work is needed to examine how home cultivation relates to public health measures in adult-use states.

Proactive Criminal Thinking and Restrictive Deterrence: A Pathway to Future Offending and Sanction Avoidance

Perceived crime benefit and criminal thinking are essential factors in predicting future offending. However, less is known about how the interaction of the two influences individuals' perception and cognition of crime. This study explores whether proactive criminal thinking mediates the effect of perceived crime benefit, and tests whether restrictive deterrence influences these pathways. Using a drug dealer sample that was drawn from the Second RAND Inmate Survey, this paper finds that proactive criminal thinking significantly mediates the effect of perceived crime benefit on future offending, criminal self-efficacy, and future sanction avoidance. Mediation pathways are enhanced when taking a heterogeneous crime strategy as a moderator, but only in the experienced drug dealer subsample. These results suggest that proactive criminal thinking is a route for channeling the effects of perceived crime benefit, and an amplifier for bringing restrictive deterrence into play. Both roles apply to experienced offenders rather than less-experienced offenders. Integrating restrictive deterrence with individuals' perception and cognition of crime is a meaningful attempt to fit restrictive deterrence into a broader theoretical map.

Home cultivation across Canadian provinces after cannabis legalization

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The current study examined home cultivation in Canada after non-medical cannabis legalization.

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9% of Canadian cannabis consumers reported home cultivation in 2020.

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Home cultivation rates increased post-legalization among cannabis consumers.

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Home cultivation was less common in provinces where home cultivation was prohibited.

Aims

Little research exists on home cultivation in Canada after non-medical cannabis legalization in 2018. The aims of the study were to: (1) estimate the percentage of home cultivation before and after legalization; (2) estimate the quantity and expenditure of cannabis plants; and (3) examine the association between provincial policies and home cultivation after legalization.

Methods

Repeat cross-sectional survey data come from Canadian respondents in the International Cannabis Policy Study in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Respondents aged 16–65 were recruited through online commercial panels. Home cultivation rates were estimated among all respondents in 2019 and 2020 (n = 26,304) and among a sub-sample of past 12-month cannabis consumers in 2018–2020 (n = 12,493). Weighted multivariable logistic regression models examined the association between home cultivation and provincial policies among all respondents, 2019–2020.

Results

Cannabis consumers in 2019 (7.9%; AOR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.07,2.01) and 2020 (8.8%; AOR = 1.62, 95 %CI: 1.18,2.23) had higher odds of reporting home cultivation in the past 12 months than pre-legalization (5.8%). Post-legalization, past 12-month home cultivation was lower in Quebec and Manitoba, the two provinces that prohibited home cultivation (3.2%), than in provinces where home cultivation was permitted (6.8%; AOR = 0.48, 95 %CI: 0.39, 0.59). The median number of plants grown across all provinces was between 3.1 and 3.5 in all years.

Conclusions

Almost one in ten Canadian cannabis consumers reported home cultivation of cannabis in 2020, with modest increases following legalization and most growing within the non-medical limit of four plants. Home cultivation was less common in provinces where home cultivation was prohibited.

Restrictive Deterrence in Drug Offenses: A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis of Mixed Studies

Deterrence by punishment aims to prevent a crime; however, it is not always successful. Restrictive deterrence explains the continuous criminal activities that occur despite deterrence; offenders enact various strategies to avoid detection, which is more typical among drug offenders given that they have a high frequency of offending and exposure to punishment. This systematic review provides an in-depth understanding of restrictive deterrence of drug offenders. Two prominent themes, "restrictive deterrence strategy" and "deterrability and restrictive deterrence," depict drug offenders' restrictive deterrence and effectively fit within the certainty-severity framework of punishment. Future studies should investigate restrictive deterrence strategies in the after-arrest context, the facilitative effect of perception of risk on strategy development, and facilitators or inhibitors affecting the diffusion of restrictive deterrence strategies.

Drug induced homicide laws may worsen opioid related harms: An example from rural North Carolina

Drug-induced homicide (DIH) laws typically allow for the prosecution of drug distribution resulting in an overdose fatality as equivalent to homicide or manslaughter. Despite vigorous debate about the appropriateness of DIH laws as a response to overdose, the public health impacts of this increasingly common prosecutorial strategy remain unknown. In this policy analysis, we take up the question of how DIH prosecutions impact local persons and communities through the lens of a high-profile DIH conviction that took place in Haywood County, a rural county located in the Appalachian region of western North Carolina. Describing insights gained from two unrelated but overlapping studies carried out in Haywood County, we identify several plausible mechanisms through which DIH laws may negatively impact public health. Among these are disruptions to the local drug market and deterrence from calling 911 when witnessing an overdose. With the number of DIH prosecutions growing rapidly, more research on the public health impacts of DIH laws is urgently needed.

Cannabis Prevalence and National Drug Policy in 27 Countries: An Analysis of Adolescent Substance Use

Prior research that assesses the relationship between cannabis policy and prevalence rates has yielded mixed results, perhaps due to the varying rigor of these investigations. Addressing some of these issues in rigor and informed by a rational choice theory (RCT), we hypothesize that those policies on the more punitive end of McDonald and colleagues' classification will be most effective. Examining legislation in 27 countries utilizing the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2) through hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) models with both individual- and country-level controls, we find little support for these hypotheses. Instead, results from our analysis largely indicate that the variation in country prevalence rates from 2005 to 2007 was not significantly related to cannabis control policy. We comment on possible policy implications for these preliminary results.

The challenges and benefits of analyzing feedback comments in surveys: Lessons from a cross-national online survey of small-scale cannabis growers

It is common practice in survey questionnaires to include a general open and non-directive feedback question at the end, but the analysis of this type of data is rarely discussed in the methodological literature. While these open-ended comments can be useful, most researchers fail to report on this issue. The aim of this article is to illustrate and reflect upon the benefits and challenges of analyzing responses to open-ended feedback questions. The article describes the experiences of coding and analyzing data generated through a feedback question at the end of an international online survey with small-scale cannabis cultivators carried out by the Global Cannabis Cultivation Research Consortium. After describing the design and dataset of the web survey, the analytical approach and coding frame are presented. The analytical strategies chosen in this study illustrate the diversity and complexity of feedback comments which pose methodological challenges to researchers wishing to use them for data analyses. In this article, three types of feedback comments (political/policy comments, general comments of positive and negative appreciation, and methodological comments) are used to illustrate the difficulties and advantages of analyzing this type of data. The advantages of analyzing feedback comments are well known, but they seem to be rarely exploited. General feedback questions at the end of surveys are typically non-directive. If researchers want to use these data for research and analyses, they need a clear strategy. They ought to give enough thought to why they are including this type of question, and develop an analytical strategy at the design stage of the study.

Propagating the Haze? Community and professional perceptions of cannabis cultivation and the impacts of prohibition

BACKGROUND

Recent decades have seen substantial changes in the UK cannabis landscape, including increased domestic production, the ascendancy of stronger strains (namely 'skunk') and the drug's reclassification under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. Resultantly, cannabis retains significance in the consciousness, priorities and policy agendas of communities, drug services and criminal justice agencies.

METHODS

This paper presents an empirical study, which examined both perceptions and impacts of cannabis cultivation and its control within a North-West English borough. It draws on qualitative research with samples of professionals, practitioners, resident groups, cannabis users, cannabis users' families and cannabis cultivators themselves.

FINDINGS

The findings suggest that cannabis cultivation was not a uniformly familiar concept to respondents, who had limited knowledge and experience of its production. Across all participant groups, the transmission of accurate information was lacking, with individuals instead drawing on the reductionist drug discourse (Taylor, 2016) to fill knowledge deficits. Consequently, some participants conflated cannabis cultivation with wider prohibitionist constructions of drug markets, resulting in the diffusion of misinformation and an amplification of anxieties. In contrast, other participants construed cultivation as making economic sense during austerity, justifying such tolerance through inverse adherence to the same narrow socio-cultural construction of drugs i.e. that cultivation carried comparatively less harms than real drug markets. Enforcement mechanisms also drew on generic prohibitionist conceptions, assuming cultivators to be unconstrained, autonomous actors in need of punishment; a belief which lacked nuanced understanding of the local terrain where vulnerable individuals cultivating under duress played a key role in the supply chain.

CONCLUSION

The paper concludes with a call for the provision of accessible information/education; the need to challenge and reconceptualise the assumed autonomy and resultant punity directed at all cannabis cultivators; and a subsequent need to reassess established forms of legal (and increasingly social) enforcement.