Everyday life with cannabis - about the moral frames among recreational cannabis users

1. Everyday life with cannabis - about the moral frames among recreational cannabis users Anne-Sofie Christensen, Vibeke Asmussen Frank and Helle Vibeke Dahl Nordic Alcohol and Drug Researchers’ Assembly Copenhagen, Denmark. August 27th – 29th 2012

2. Methodology • Internet survey with 560 cannabis growers (2008) • 42 qualitative interviews with respondents from survey (2008-10): 7 women and 35 men between 18 and 75 • In this presentation, we only use draw on interviews with informants older than 25 years • All were growing from a few plants in the windowsill to 10-20 plants in the back yard; a few informants had up to 50-100 plants.

3. Four questions • 1) In which situations do the informants use cannabis in their everyday life; • 2) what are their explanations and the purposes for their consumption, • 3) how do they encompass the cannabis into their everyday lives, and on the contrary • 4) in which situations do the informants not use cannabis – and why?

4. Moral frames for not smoking cannabis

5. MF1: Children • Interviewer: Do you smoke while you are with the children? • Well, sometimes I smoke after they are off to bed around midnight. But I don’t when I’m with them physically or play with them or something • Interviewer: Why don’t you smoke? • To me it would be the same as being drunk while being with children, I do not think is right. • Interviewer: Do you mind if they know that you smoke? • I don’t see any reason why they should know. [...] There is no reason that they get the ideas at such a young age.

6. MF2: Work • …When I go to work and things like that, I will not risk that some of my colleagues or others gets beaten up because I am not alert. I will rather hurt while I'm at work [he smokes to ease pain]. As a guard, it's just not very good a good idea [...] And when you're done working, you can just walk 500 meters and then you can pull one [a joint] out of your pocket. I think that even if it was legal then I would not do it while working. It's like you do not drink when you are at work, it's basically something wrong .

7. MF3: Traffics • ... And I don’t smoke if I’m going driving, I have no car now but I have a motorcycle, which I ride every day, but it's not that I smoke and go driving. I go where I have to go and then smoke.

8. MF4: Travel and holidays • ’Well I just had 20 days where I was in the [far-east]. I had a job outthere [...]I would certainly not want go to jail for many years out there. So I didn’t bring any cannabis with me and I did fine, I had no problems’. • When traveling in certain social settings i.e. with whom they do not like to smoke. • When the need for smoking disappears or diminishes.

9. MF5: Family - and social events • ... Just to take an example before I go to family dinner or just before I arrangements, I don’t smoke. I don’t want to walk around being high [...] I didn’t smoke a joint before coming here today; I wanted to be clear in your head, so I didn’t smoke [...] if I come home from work and light a joint and then my mom calls to say that we're going to dinner in 4 hours at grandmother’s, I'll just have to wait two hours and see how I feel and if I still feel unbalanced so I call and cancel and if I do not think I'm terribly high, I'll just go.

11. Thank you !