The Routledge Handbook of Post-Prohibition Cannabis Research and CASP developments

About three years ago, I was asked by Dr. Josh Meisel (Sociology, Humboldt State University) and Routledge Senior Editor Dean Birkenkamp to co-edit a Routledge Handbook of cannabis research. Next month, the hardcover and e-book editions will be published and available for sale with the title “The Routledge Handbook of Post-Prohibition Cannabis Research.”

Routledge is a global academic publisher and this collection is intended to stimulate research agendas across disciplines but especially those that intersect with “Law and Society” as an interdisciplinary field. The key characteristic of this field is that it takes law as a subject of foundational critical inquiry. The Handbook centers cannabis prohibition as a social problem, but embeds that critique in drug prohibition more broadly. Neither of these approaches is especially robust in most of the current research about cannabis legalization today, and so this book is a fairly major intervention in discussions about cannabis and its place in drug policy.

The book has 30 chapters, more than 50 authors, and is divided into five sections: Governance; Public Health; Markets and Society; Ecology and the Environment; and Culture and Social Change. There are five short framing essays for each section. Both CASP co-founders, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal and Dr. Michelle Sexton, contribute chapters to the volume.

In the coming month I’ll reflect on the process and outcomes that led to this particular collection of authors from many, mostly social science, disciplines and interdisciplinary collaborations.

For now, it’s important to note that this project and others that developed because it happened have been the main use of CASP time for the last three years, during which we have published very little on the web site. I want to review what those projects have been and are in order to catch our audiences up with our work. We will be unpacking descriptions of that work in future posts, but briefly:

1. In order to access institutional academic resources that helped with the Handbook, mainly library privileges, I became affiliated with the Humboldt State University Sociology Department.
2. I continued to work gathering information, hosting panels, and presenting talks as CASP Executive Director in Humboldt County, a body of work stretching back to before we founded CASP in 2013. Given my knowledge of the cannabis landscape and participation in key moments like hosting now-Governor of California Gavin Newsom’s Blue Ribbon Commission tour of the County’s cannabis people and places in 2015, I was asked to co-direct the Humboldt Institute of Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR) in 2019.
3. Being co-director of an academic institute counts as service for teaching faculty, usually used as currency in the promotion process. Since I am not on the professorial professional path, and the post is unpaid, the CASP Board accepted this service position as aligned with our Mission and on behalf of a public institution, and included it in my annual duties as official CASP work.
4. Dr. Meisel and I were approached about two years ago by a Humboldt State University Provost to develop an undergraduate degree proposal in Cannabis Studies, since we were the co-directors of HIIMR. This work became an extension of my CASP duties. We delivered that proposal in May 2021, and I look forward to sharing with our audiences the things I learned about creating the world’s first liberal arts undergraduate degree curriculum relating to the subject of cannabis. There are a few industry-oriented cannabis degree programs at private universities; a few “medicinal plant chemistry” degree programs; and many, many extended education certificates focused on cannabis industry training out there. None of them, however, have a liberal arts core curriculum dedicated to the history and geography of cannabis, and none of them have the concentrations we designed toward professional outcomes in environmental stewardship and community change. The proposal is winding its way through the California State University process for approval, and there is no guarantee it will make it through, especially by the proposed start date of Fall 2022. But it is one of three pilot degree programs that HSU is pitching as the first phase of its transition to a Polytechnic University, for which it received about $450 million recently.
5. Around the same time we (Dr. Meisel and I) were asked to develop the Cannabis Studies degree proposal, CASP was subcontracted by the California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP) to help Humboldt County apply for a Cannabis Equity Grant. Future posts will reflect on that process, but it was successful and led to more work with CCRP. This work involved researching and writing Equity Assessments for local jurisdictions in California, work that continues to this moment and at least through the rest of 2021.
6. I will also be working on two California Cannabis Research grants for the next several years, which we will update once they officially begin. So far, the state has not finished disbursing the grants.

There’s a lot more to report on, and unpack from what’s been presented here. But the main takeaway is that our celebration of the Handbook’s publication marks a regenerative moment for the Center for the Study of Cannabis Policy and its mission. Looking back, our four Terpestival events marked a key phase when we served our mission primarily through popular education, though there were academic and policy-oriented projects and events as well. These days, our mission is robustly served through academic work and equity policy engagement.

That said, we have always been open to creative, on-mission collaboration with popular education. We are especially excited to point our audience toward the LIT Project, a collaboration with Humboldt consultant Nicole Riggs, who wears a number of hats in the County but wanted to partner with us on grassroots education, since we are a Research and Education 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Nicole’s passion for lifting up grassroots cannabis culture and history in Humboldt County led her to us several years ago when she was working on a marketing strategy for Humboldt County’s cannabis with the Humboldt County Grower’s Alliance (HGCA). The LIT Project that is actively underway is a research project that studies Cooperation Humboldt‘s efforts to promote cooperative business models for small cannabis cultivators in Humboldt County: how they go about it, what the challenges are, and what results they achieve. Dr. Tony Silvaggio, our longtime Research Affiliate who is now Chair of the Sociology Department at HSU, will be collaborating with Dr. Corva to provide feedback on Nicole’s research design and execution, and we will publish her results right here on the CASP web site.

We look forward to updating the CASP web site much more regularly. For now, we are pleased to announce that co-founder Dr. Sunil Aggarwal has rejoined the Board as Vice President, and 2014-2015 Board member Joy Beckerman has also returned from Advisory Board status as President. She will help us re-launch our public education efforts and contribute her vast expertise in hemp history and present developments to our information network and web content. We thank AC Braddock and Alison Draisin for their tenure and note that they were both especially involved in the 2018 Terpestival, which was our last major popular education event and fundraiser. Perhaps if cannabis regulations come around in the right place at the right time, we will bring it back. For now the four Terpestival events stand as major accomplishments and we are grateful for their contributions.