Authors Meet Critics: "Green Rush: The Rise of Medical Marijuana in the United States"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

This “Author Meets Critics” panel brings together a diverse range of policy process and cannabis policy scholars to discuss Daniel J. Mallinson and A. Lee Hannah’s Green Rush: The Rise of Medical Marijuana in the United States (NYU Press, July 2024). This book leverages the policy process heuristic and related policy process theories to explain why medical marijuana policy spread across the American states and the implications of this policy for federalism and the future of drug policy.

As of 2024, thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana. Twenty-four have legalized recreational use, supporting what is now a flourishing multibillion-dollar industry. However, they have done so under the specter of strict federal prohibition that has been inconsistently enforced. Green Rush explores the backdrop of this tension, including shifts in public opinion, growing opposition to the War on Drugs, the promise of new revenue streams, and more. It shows how states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia not only created, legitimized, and spread medical marijuana policy but also learned from each other’s successes and failures throughout the process.

The book is steeped in multiple major policy process theories, including the Multiple Streams Framework, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, policy diffusion, policy implementation, and Policy Feedback Theory. Bringing each of these theories to bear, it unpacks what the defiant innovation of state cannabis policy liberalization means for American federalism.

The panelists represent several of these key theories, as well as expertise in different aspects of cannabis policy. Mallinson and Hannah will present their ongoing work that builds from this book and each of the panelists will provide critiques while also presenting on their related work and how to advance the study of cannabis policy in political science.

Sub Unit

• Division 25: Public Policy

Chairs

• Daniel J Mallinson Penn State, Harrisburg

• Lee Hannah Wright State University

Presenters

• Gwen Arnold University of California, Davis

• Clare Brock Colorado State University

• Nyron N. Crawford Princeton University

• Jeffrey Moyer University of Massachusetts.Boston