Cannabis use under prohibitionism–the interplay between motives, contexts and subjects

Abstract

A key question in drugs research is why people use psychoactive substances. Diverse motives such as boredom, habit, and pain relief have served as explanations, but little is known about how adult cannabis users motivate their use in prohibitionist policy contexts, like Sweden. The aim is to explore what motives a sample of adult Swedish cannabis users refer to when they give meaning to their use. We ask: what aspects of cannabis use (e.g. drug effects, individual characteristics and social contexts) are emphasized in their accounts, and how are such aspects combined to describe motives and justify use? In this study, motives are perceived as culturally situated action, and our analysis is based on online text messages (n = 238) and interviews (n = 12). Participants emphasized either the characteristics of the use situation (motives such as party, relaxation and social function) or of him-/herself as an individual (motives such as mindfulness, identity marker and somatic function). They often mentioned medical and recreational motives in the same account, and carefully presented themselves as rational individuals. The motives reflect that the drugs discourse is increasingly medicalized, that responsibility is highly esteemed in contemporary societies, and that cannabis use is still stigmatized in Sweden.