"Pop Culture's Influence on Recreational Marijuana Use & Legislation: A Case Study on Snoop Dogg"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper recently posted to SSRN and authored by Abby Graves, a recent graduate The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.  This paper is the fourteenth paper in an on-going series of student papers supported by the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center.  (The thirteen prior papers in this series are linked below.)   Here is this latest paper's abstract:

Marijuana has taken a long journey through the court of public opinion; from condemned fringe use in minority communities and by jazz musicians through the 20s and 40s, to its heyday in the 60s and 70s era of Woodstock and Bob Dylan, only to be villainized again in the 80s and 90s.  Today, the public perception of marijuana is dawning a new era of acceptance, in no small part thanks to its normalization in rap music and white America’s embrace of men like Calvin Broadus, also known as Snoop Doggy Dogg.  Modern popular culture has slowly changed the public perception of recreational marijuana use and paved the way for legalization.  Social scientists have been able to link the lyrics in popular music to the attitudes in popular opinion, and this paper will focus on the influence of hip hop, gangsta rap, the cult of celebrity, and Snoop Dogg himself on modern legalization efforts and cannabusiness.

Prior student papers in this series:

• "The Canna(business) of Higher Education"
• "Marijuana Banking in New York and Around the US: 'Swim at Your Own Risk'"
• "Intellectual Property Survey: Cannabis Plant Types, Methods of Extraction, IP Protection, and One Patent That Could Ruin It All"
• "Marijuana in the Workplace: Distinguishing Between On-Duty and Off-Duty Consumption"
• "An Argument Against Regulating Cannabis Like Alcohol"
• "The State of Marijuana in The Buckeye State and Fiscal Policy Considerations of Legalized Recreational Marijuana"
• "Race Based Statutes at Play with Cannabis: Cultivating a Process for Weeding Out the Competition"
• "Tribal Cannabis: Balancing Tribal Sovereignty and Cooperative Enforcement"
• "Land of the Free, Home of the (Disgruntled) Brave: The Case for Allowing Veterans Access to Medical Marijuana"
• "Cannabidiol (CBD) in the Therapeutics Industry"
• "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why IRC § 280E Is Not the Industry Killer It Is Portrayed to Be"
• "Achieving Diversity in the Marijuana Industry: Should States Implement Social Equity into Their Regimes?"
• "Cannabis Legalization: Dealing with the Black Market"