Research paper
Four barriers and a set of values that prevent violence among cannabis growers

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.08.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Two and half years of ethnographic fieldwork among large-scale and small-scale indoor cannabis growers, and interviews and conversations with 52 growers, revealed few cases of violence.

  • Four barriers prevented violence among the cannabis growers.

  • The cannabis culture seems to make cannabis markets more peaceful than drug markets characterized by street culture.

Abstract

Background

Cannabis markets are often described as less violent than other drug markets. Domestic cannabis cultivation markets seem to be especially non-violent. However, few studies have investigated why this might be.

Methods

Two and half years of ethnographic fieldwork among indoor cannabis growers and interviews and conversations with 52 growers in Norway.

Results

This study identified four barriers and a set of values that prevent violence among growers. (1) Violence attracts increased attention from police and enemies, which inhibits ‘business as usual’ and reduces profits. (2) Careful attention to profits makes growers calculate and prepare for financial losses. (3) The prospect of covering debt by producing more cannabis makes it possible to choose non-violent sanctions. (4) Tight social ties and friendships prevent violence when conflicts erupt. However, the cannabis culture of the actors and the transactions stands out as the main reason why these four barriers are more important in cannabis markets than in other drug markets.

Conclusion

This paper discusses how policymakers can benefit from the market changes that follow ‘import substitution’ to construct policies that prevent violence and facilitate peaceful drug markets and drug cultures.

Introduction

The domestic cultivation of cannabis is increasingly replacing its importation and smuggling throughout the Western world (Potter et al., 2011, UNODC, 2012). Norway appears to be following this trend, albeit at a slower pace than other European countries (see Hammersvik, Sandberg, & Pedersen, 2012, p. 458). The new trend of import substitution has generated new research questions, especially about how such changes affect market dynamics (see Decorte, 2010a). A crucial subject in cannabis policy has been how to prevent violence in cannabis markets. Despite the obvious importance of this topic, there are few studies of peaceful conflict resolution among cannabis growers. Nevertheless, many argue that cannabis markets seem to be less violent than other drug markets (Room, Fisher, Hall, Lenton, & Reuter, 2010, p. 61).

The lack of violence in cannabis markets may be due to the drug's soothing effect or the normalization of cannabis use in the general population (Coomber, 2006, p. 141). The normalization of cannabis might imply that participants in the cannabis trade are part of conventional cultures and that they espouse non-violent values. In particular, many small-scale growers may have such characteristics (Decorte, 2010a, Decorte, 2010b, Potter, 2010, Hammersvik et al., 2012). The more general cultural and symbolic values in drug markets, including those related to violence, seem to be very important for the possible use of violence (Johnson, Golub, & Dulap, 2000). For example, in drug markets in ‘street cultures’, violence seems to be a symbolic resource for obtaining and maintaining ‘respect’, ‘street cred’ or ‘street capital’ (Anderson, 1999, Bourgois, 2003, Sandberg and Pedersen, 2010). Such street cultures have been described as a response to the limited opportunities marginalized men have to express their masculinity (Bourgois, 2003). Studies from Norway have shown that street culture is an important component in the upper level of the wholesale cannabis market, as well as in the open street market. In these instances, marginalized ethnic minority men with working class backgrounds play a key role (Sandberg, 2013b, p. 1144). Violence has been reported to be a typical feature of open street markets (Sandberg & Pedersen, 2011).

However, the description of cannabis markets as more peaceful than other drug markets could also be a result of an “absence of reports rather than any positive information that disputes between market participants are resolved amicably and that competition for territory is lacking” (Room et al., 2010, p. 61). This explanation is supported by a recent study of large-scale hash operators in Denmark in which researchers found highly violent conflicts between bikers and ethnic minority gangs (Moeller & Hesse, 2013). Nevertheless, domestic cannabis growers have not been reported to be part of these conflicts. This might indicate that many growers – and especially small-scale growers – typically operate independently in networks of friends and acquaintances (see also Decorte, 2008, Decorte, 2010b, Hough et al., 2003, Potter, 2010). Of course, growers may still experience frauds and business disputes. A study of large-scale growers in the Netherlands found that disciplinary violence was common when unreliable and disloyal behaviour led to great losses (Spapens, 2011, p. 10). In this context, disloyal behaviour refers to acts that are interpreted as theft, fraud or informing police (snitching). Unreliability refers to breaches of business contracts, missed appointments or neglected work duties. The role of violence and threats in such situations is to discipline behaviour, deter further infractions and enforce deals and duties.

Drug researchers agree that violence is one of the instruments drug dealers use to regulate business agreements. However, studies offer competing views about how much violence is used in practice (Taylor & Potter, 2013, p. 396). Over the past 15 years, a growing number of drug market researchers have claimed that violence is far less common in all Western drug markets than popular stereotypes and common beliefs imply (Jacques & Wright, 2008a, p. 222; Pearson & Hobbs, 2001, p. 41; Zimring & Hawkins, 1997, pp. 138–144). Moreover, cannabis markets are often described as the most peaceful of the drug markets. Thus, rather than seeing violence as part of a working drug market, we could see it as a result of market dysfunction and instability (Pearson & Hobbs, 2001, p. 42). The normality of peace in drug markets makes it important to investigate what prevents violence (Jacques & Wright, 2008a).

In a previous study, I found that peaceful negotiations and sanctions were effective means for restoring financial losses and justice (Hammersvik, 2014). The present paper goes into greater depth regarding the economic and cultural mechanisms that prevent violence. I examine three conflicts in which disloyal or unreliable behaviour led to large financial losses without triggering violence. My aim is to determine why some growers avoid violence in conflict situations that are commonly described as triggering violence. Possible policy implications of the findings are discussed briefly at the end of the article.

Section snippets

Method

The data for this report come from two studies of cannabis markets in Norway, namely two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork and an interview-based study (for details see Hammersvik et al., 2012). The ‘gatekeeper’ who provided access in the fieldwork was a research participant from one of my previous projects. We first met in 2004 through a friend of a friend and we have stayed in contact. Originally, he was a large-scale cannabis importer, but he has not been involved in smuggling and

The cost of violence: violence attracts attention and interferes with business

At one of the large grow sites (200–250 plants cultivated in soil), the conflict started with unreliable behaviour, but it evolved to include disloyalty and large financial losses. The grow operation consisted of two gardeners, Calvin (35) and David (35), and two investors, Eric (36) and Bob (42). Eric and Bob had been growing and dealing cannabis for 10 and eight years, respectively, whereas Calvin and David were inexperienced at running large illegal operations. David's poor understanding of

The symbolic value of violence in the cannabis culture

The four barriers that prevented violence among the growers in this study were partly linked to financial incentives and thus to the general economic rationale for violence in illegal markets. However, violence is not only an economic tool for ensuring larger market shares, trustworthy relationships and transactions. Violence is also a powerful language of masculinity, honour and respect, reputation and status, and identity and group solidarity (Anderson, 1999, Bourgois, 2003, Sandberg and

Discussion

I have identified four barriers that prevented cannabis growers from using violence in conflicts that are commonly thought to trigger violence: the cost of violence, close relationships to partners, a realistic attitude about profit and the absence of economic hardship. All four barriers have previously been described in the literature on conflict resolutions in illegal drug markets (Jacques and Wright, 2008a, Jacques and Wright, 2008b, Jacques, 2009, Pearson and Hobbs, 2001, Taylor, 2007). The

Conflict of interest

No interest of conflicts.

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