World Wide Weed, Need and Greed:cannabis cultivation in the UK and beyond

Gary PotterLSBU

potterg@lsbu.ac.uk

“Look, I know my habit causes problems in Colombia, but you try finding a Fair Trade drug dealer”

Preparing the ground:Existing models of UK drug markets

• The Pyramid model: the stereotypical view of drug markets– Organisation (organised crime?); Violence; Adulteration; ‘Pushing’– Primarily about the money

• ‘Layers’ of the market (Pearson and Hobbs, 2001)– Importation; Wholesale; the ‘Middle Market’; retail level

distribution

• ‘Bifurcation’– Of organisational structures in drugs markets– Of ‘attitudes, ‘motives’ or ‘drivers’

• Changes over time (e.g. Adler, 1985; Dorn et al. 1992)– From ‘Hippie’ ideologies to violence, greed and organised crime

A growing industry:Trends in domestic cultivation

• The demand for cannabis• Traditional supply routes• Recent trends towards domestic cultivation

– Legal cultivation• Industrial hemp• Medical marijuana

– Illegal cultivation• Now accounts for as much as 60% (or more) of the

cannabis consumed in the UK (source: IDMU)

Sowing the seeds:How cannabis is grown in the UK

• Outdoor cultivation– Gardeners– Guerrilla growers– Farmers

• Greenhouses– Security vs. control

• Indoor cultivation– No, low and high-tech

approaches– Climate control to

maximise drug production

Outdoor growing

Indoor growing

Fertile ground:Who grows cannabis, and why?

• Requirements to become a cannabis grower– Space; Materials (including seeds or cuttings);

Knowledge• Who grows cannabis?

– Demographic profiles– Personal traits: interests and ideologies

• Cannabis growing as an ideological position– Cannabis as a cultural symbol since 1960s– Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”

Roots:Ideological cannabis growers

• Not-for-profit cannabis growers• All about the ‘weed’…

– Activism– Affiliation with wider ‘cannabis culture’– Personal use and social supply

• Avoiding the black market• Ensuring quality, strength and purity

• Elements of ‘need’– Medical marijuana cultivation

• ‘Accidental’ cannabis cultivation• Summary of non-financial drivers

The budding business:Commercial cannabis cultivation

• Small scale for-profit growers (‘Weed’, ‘Need’, and the emergence of ‘Greed’)– One off opportunists and the slippery slope– Growing as a business: the self-employed grower– Partnerships and growing friends– The limits to individual grow-ops

• Mid-range growing (‘Weed’, ‘Need’ and ‘Greed’)– Co-operatives– Franchises– Key individuals

• ‘Corporate’ cannabis cultivation: the traditional pyramid model? (‘Greed’ dominates over ‘Weed’)

Bearing fruit: discussion points• The need to recognise domestic production

– Import substitution• The interplay of financial and non-financial

‘drivers’– Drift and the ‘slippery slope’

• Networks and key individuals – linking demand and supply

• Bifurcation– Methods; ideologies; organisation

• Conditions leading to the ‘Green avalanche’• Future trends for cannabis and other drugs

World Wide Weed:Some Observations on International Developments

• Import substitution in a range of industrialised nations– Outdoor vs Indoor

• Typologies of growers– Weed, Need and Greed motivations– Amateur and professional– Small and large scale

• Impact on traditional producer nations and global trafficking

• Resistance to policing and eradication efforts