Background: Collective, societal actors have been among the most vocal critics of status quo drug policies and a driving force behind legal reforms and cultural shifts regarding marijuana in Latin America. Cannabis activists have taken to the streets, engaged in civil disobedience, organized as collectives and lobbied decisionmakers. Despite a long-standing recognition that that “efforts to change drug policies have often taken the form of social movements…” (Room 1991:37), cannabis activism has seldom been studied explicitly as social movement and making use of the vast body of social movement theory.
Objectives: To advance the empirical study of cannabis activism and provide it with a more solid conceptual footing, the paper compares and contrasts cannabis activism across Latin America using social movement theory and concepts. Besides analyzing the state of cannabis activism in Latin America, the aim of the paper to showcase that paying attention to cannabis activism and studying it using social movement theory holds great potential.
Methods: By drawing on original research from Mexico, Uruguay and Chile, extant studies of cannabis activism and social movement concepts, the paper unearths similarities and differences in political opportunity structures, resource mobilization, membership characteristics, degrees of professionalization, repertoires of action, framing and mobilization practices and outcomes of activism across Latin America. In doing so, the paper presents a comparative and theoretically grounded analysis of the variegated practices, processes and outcomes of Latin American cannabis activism.
Implications: The paper establishes that cannabis movements are important collective, societal actors involved in the making and unmaking of drug policies and highlights how social movement theory can contribute to describing, analyzing and explaining cannabis activism.