Description
Winner of the Donald W. Light Award for the Applied or Public Practice of Medical Sociology
Medical marijuana laws have spread across the U.S. to all but a handful of states. Yet, eighty years of social stigma and federal prohibition creates dilemmas for patients who participate in state programs.
The Medicalization of Marijuana takes the first comprehensive look at how patients negotiate incomplete medicalization and what their experiences reveal about our relationship with this controversial plant as it is incorporated into biomedicine. Is cannabis used similarly to other medicines? Drawing on interviews with midlife patients in Colorado, a state at the forefront of medical cannabis implementation, this book explores the practical decisions individuals confront about medical use, including whether cannabis will work for them; the risks of registering in a state program; and how to handle questions of supply, dosage, and routines of use.
Individual stories capture how patients redefine and reclaim cannabis use as legitimate—individually and collectively—and grapple with an inherently political identity. These experiences help illustrate how stigma, prejudice, and social change operate.
By positioning cannabis use within sociological models of medical behavior, Newhart and Dolphin provide a wide-reaching, theoretically informed analysis of the issue that expands established concepts and provides new insight on medical cannabis and how state programs work.
Table of Contents
Preface
Marijuana, Cannabis, and Hemp: A Note on Terms
Introduction: A Tale of Two Patients
Chapter 1: The Social Construction of Cannabis Use
Chapter 2: The Landscape of Cannabis Policy
Chapter 3: Becoming a Patient
Chapter 4: Cannabis and the Doctor–Patient Interaction
Chapter 5: Medical Cannabis Use in Everyday Life
Chapter 6: Changing the Set: Creating Medical Routines of Cannabis Use
Chapter 7: The Power of Place: Changes to Setting
Chapter 8: Stereotypes, Stigma, and Mitigating Risk
Chapter 9: Strategies for Managing and Changing Cannabis Stigma
Chapter 10: Beyond Medicalization: Healthism and Pharmaceuticalization
Conclusion: Medicalization and the Future of Cannabis Medicine
Appendix A: Research Methods
Appendix B: Annotated Index of Patients by Pseudonym
Index
