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Noah S Schwartz, Pot for Profit: Cannabis Legalization, Racial Capitalism, and the Expansion of the Carceral State by Joseph Mello, Political Science Quarterly, 2025;, qqaf031, https://doi.org/10.1093/psquar/qqaf031
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The legalization of cannabis in many U.S. states seemed like a happy ending after the failure of the War on Drugs. Yet, as Mello demonstrates in Pot for Profit, the benefits of this new “green rush” (56) have not been equitably divided. Mello employs a sociolegal approach to explain how the legalization of cannabis, rather than putting an end to the battle of the cannabis community against the forces of prohibition, instead represents an “act of creative destruction” (21). This new regulatory regime uses legalization to enact less overtly harmful—but perhaps more insidious—forms of state control. Drawing on the law and society and social movements scholarship, theories of racial capitalism, as well as Foucault's biopolitics, Mello demonstrates how cannabis legalization left behind the primarily racialized and economically marginalized people impacted by the mass incarceration and overpolicing of the War on Drugs.
The book gives a comprehensive overview of the sociolegal history of cannabis in the United States. The story is then brought into the present through interviews with cannabis activists and extensive textual analysis. The interviews are effective at illustrating Mello's argument and putting a human face on the history and politics of cannabis regulation, something so often missing from policy discussions. Mello's empathy for his participants shines through the pages.
