The current situation with cannabinoids

Methodological Innovations

2018

In this article, I examine how four medicinal cannabis users used impression management during in-depth, qualitative interviews to attend to self-presentational concerns. I examine the rhetorical strategies and narratives articulated by the participants while also attending to the role that I played in co-construction as the interviewer. Later I discuss how, although the participants’ accounts are occasioned by the interviews, they can still provide significant insights into the social worlds of the participants beyond the interviews. While discussions about whether to treat interviews as topic, resource or both are not new, I argue that we can treat interviews as both topic and resource because impression management is a product of the individual’s habitus and it and the accounts it produces are part of their social world.

Section: Background and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You can’t stand on a corner and talk about it …’: Medicinal cannabis use, impression management and the analytical status of interviews

Methodological Innovations

2018

“…Despite what tend to be labelled as ‘anecdotal’ claims for cannabis’ medical efficacy, as well as clinical evidence (see Dansak, 1997; Hollister, 2001; Kickman and King, 2014; Leung, 2011; Musty and Rossi, 2001; Zimmer and Morgan, 1995), cannabis remains a controlled class B substance under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, in the UK. Since 1 November 2018, expert doctors have been able to prescribe cannabis-based medicines in the UK (GOV.UK, 2018), not herbal cannabis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating Ambiguous Substance Use: UK newspaper representations of self-prescribing medicinal cannabis use in the 1990s

2022

Journal of Drug Issues

This paper examined representations of medicinal cannabis users in UK newspapers, 1990–1998. It is important to understand the significance of these newspaper articles during this early stage of the growing cultural normalisation of medicinal cannabis use, in the UK, which is not documented in the existing literature. This is a very different period in relation to access to information for members of the public because it was before the widespread use of the internet. The significance of these dates is also that I started interviewing medicinal cannabis users in 1998, which led to Coomber et al. (2003). Very significantly, almost half of the participants in that article indicated that newspapers were the source of the idea that cannabis was medicinally useful and that this accounted for why they began to use it medicinally. What was in those newspaper articles that encouraged this view? In the current article, I examined 60 newspaper articles about medicinal cannabis use, using a thematic analysis which also draws on aspects of critical discourse analysis. I report on the process of symbolic boundary work which negotiates the ambiguity of individuals portrayed as social insiders but who used cannabis. The representations within the articles emphasized the social insider characteristics of medicinal cannabis users, emphasized their genuine illnesses/impairments, but interestingly also articulated misunderstandings by the journalists which contributed to a positive portrayal.

“…Despite what tend to be labelled as 'anecdotal' claims for cannabis' medical efficacy, as well as clinical evidence (see Zimmer and Morgan, 1995;Dansak, 1997;Hollister, 2001;Musty and Rossi, 2001;Leung, 2011;Kickman and King, 2014), cannabis remains a controlled class B substance under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, in the United Kingdom. From November 1 st 2018, expert doctors have been able to prescribe cannabis-based medicines in the UK (GOV.UK, 2018), not cannabis per se.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medicinal Cannabis Users Downplaying and Shifting Stigma: Articulations of the ‘Natural’, of What Is/Is Not a ‘Drug’ and Oppositions with ‘Chemical’ Substances

Sociological Research Online

2019

While sympathy exists among the public for chronically ill and/or disabled people who use cannabis medicinally, cannabis remains a prohibited substance in the UK. How do medicinal cannabis users negotiate this potential stigma when talking about their use of this substance? I reflect on the spoken discourses of 10 medicinal cannabis users (from a sample of 32), obtained by way of qualitative interviews, adopting a critical discourse analysis approach to the data. Specifically, I focus on their articulations around three related themes: cannabis as a ‘natural’ substance, discursive oppositions between cannabis and other substances, and articulations about what is/is not a ‘drug’. I examine how participants articulated these themes in ways that attempted to negotiate the potential for stigma that talking about their cannabis use involved. I found they used rhetorical strategies that downplay their own deviance, attempt to shift the application of stigma to users of other substances, or both. I argue that the more powerful the discursive resources that are articulated, the less rhetorical work an individual has to do to negotiate positive moral standing in an encounter. I also consider to what degree these articulations involved constructions emphasising individual self-control. I argue participants emphasise their individual self-control by asserting that cannabis is a ‘natural’ substance (connoting less inherent risk).