Citation

Potter GR, Barratt MJ, Malm A, Bouchard M, Blok T, Christensen AS, Decorte T, Frank VA, Hakkarainen P, Klein A, Lenton S, Perälä J, Werse B, Wouters M. Int. J. Drug Policy 2014; 26(3): 226-237.

Affiliation

Bonger Institute of Criminology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.12.007

PMID

25582281

Abstract

BACKGROUND: This article aims to provide an overview of: demographic characteristics; experiences with growing cannabis; methods and scale of growing operations; reasons for growing; personal use of cannabis and other drugs; participation in cannabis and other drug markets; contacts with the criminal justice system for respondents to an online survey about cannabis cultivation drawn from eleven countries (N=6530). Important similarities and differences between the national samples recruited will be discussed.

METHODS: This paper utilizes data from the online web survey of predominantly 'small-scale' cannabis cultivators in eleven countries conducted by the Global Cannabis Cultivation Research Consortium (GCCRC). Here we focus primarily on descriptive statistics to highlight key similarities and differences across the different national samples.

RESULTS: Overall there was a great deal of similarity across countries in terms of: demographic characteristics; experiences with growing cannabis; methods and scale of growing operations; reasons for growing; use of cannabis and other drugs; participation in cannabis and other drug markets, and; contacts with the criminal justice system. In particular, we can recognise that a clear majority of those small-scale cannabis cultivators who responded to our survey are primarily motivated for reasons other than making money from cannabis supply and have minimal involvement in drug dealing or other criminal activities.

CONCLUSIONS: These growers generally come from 'normal' rather than 'deviant' backgrounds. Some differences do exist between the samples drawn from different countries suggesting that local factors (political, geographical, cultural, etc.) may have some influence on how small-scale cultivators operate, although differences in recruitment strategies in different countries may also account for some differences observed.

Language: en