In recent years, U.S. states have relaxed their laws to permit the operation of a commercial cannabis market despite enduring federal criminalization. While media outlets tend to consider money to be the primary motivation for working in the newly regulated cannabis industry, this article advances an alternative view that becoming a cannabis professional is linked to a broader process of drug-related identity formation. By drawing on interviews with cannabis professionals in three U.S. states (N=56), this study reveals that careers in regulated the regulated cannabis industry are facilitated through diverse moral meanings associated with this plant regardless of economic success. These meanings are filtered through imagined futures of the cannabis trade that draw people to cannabis occupations, anchor their commitment to the trade, and formalize their professional identity. Collectively, these touchstones link the process of becoming a cannabis professional the development of an authentic self-concept turning their occupational role into an extension of personal actualization. In the spirit of reflecting on cannabis policy at the twilight of drug prohibition, this article sketches out new directions for studying commercial cannabis and advocates for greater attention to the projective element of capitalism in the operation of legally contested markets.
Dr. Alexander B. Kinney joined the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology in 2022. He received in B.A. in Letters, Arts, and Sciences from Penn State-Altoona and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Arizona. Broadly, he studies contested fields of deviant behavior. Dr. Alexander B. Kinney studies gray markets, political violence, surveillance, and how contradictory institutions affect various forms of social control in society. Dr. Kinney joined the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology in 2022 after completing his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Arizona. He has an active research program analyzing how commercial cannabis businesses manage their conflicting regulatory status under state and federal laws. His research has appeared in Social Problems, Crime & Delinquency, Poetics, and Law & Policy among other journals.