This book tracks the political history and specific political actions associated with the diffusion of state-level marijuana decriminalization. It provides an integrated chronology of policy diffusion to show how social and cultural changes have impacted the shift from anti- to pro-marijuana political platforms. The main contributions are an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing policy learning and evolution, an overview of the political history of marijuana criminalization, a clear synthesis of the medical literature on cannabis effects, and a supply and demand analysis of legal and illegal marijuana markets in America. For scholars of criminal justice, law, political science, policy studies, sociology and addiction, it provides an amalgam of the diverse and divergent extant research on marijuana.

Nikolay Anguelov is assistant professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Michael P. McCarthy is research associate at the Public Policy Center, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Criminalizing Marijuana: The Diffusion of Anti-Marijuana Laws from the Southern Border to the Federal Government

Nikolay Anguelov and Michael P. McCarthy

Chapter 2: Counter Culture and Drug Use: Civil Rights, Political Activism and the Proliferation of Marijuana Consumption

Chapter 3: Fighting Counter Culture and Building Conservative Political Clout: Marijuana as the "Gateway" Scapegoat

Chapter 4: The Escalating Costs of Fighting the War on Drugs from the 1990s to Today: Markets, Governments, and Drug Barons

Chapter 5: The Addiction Question: Is Marijuana Addictive or Not?

Chapter 6: Decriminalization: The Beginning of New Political Entrepreneurship

Chapter 7: Policy Diffusion in Action: Actors and Factors that Fuel Marijuana Reform

Nikolay Anguelov and Michael P. McCarthy

Chapter 8: Who is For What? A Data Analysis of Expected Benefits from Cannabis Reform

Chapter 9: The Future: Expected Benefits, Born Costs and Unintended Consequences

References