PROFILE
Publications
2023
Getz, C., Petersen-Rockney, M., Polson, M.
After investigating the causes and effects of local cannabis cultivation bans, we recommend policy change.
2023
Polson, M., Bodwitch, H., Corva, D., Getz, C., Laudati, A., Petersen-Rockney, M., Runsten, D., Taylor, K.
Left unaddressed, smaller businesses and farms will likely collapse. Of all actors in the cannabis market, the impacts of this current moment rest most heavily upon smaller producers.
2023
Polson, M., Bodwitch, H., Biber, E., Butsic, V., Grantham, T.
Land Use Policy
There are many barriers to participation in California's regulated cannabis industry. Is there a way to achieve environmental objectives, farmer compliance, and an equitable transition away from illegal markets?
2022
Polson, M., Butsic, V., Dillis, C., de Genova, H., Grantham, T., Herrera, L.R., Hossack, J., Laudati, A., Martin, J.V., Parker-Shames, P., Petersen-Rockney, M., Sorgen, J., Starrs, G.
This report presents multiple pathways for consideration by state and local governments in their efforts to improve cannabis cultivation policy.
2021
Polson, M.
The War on Drugs, a History
Explore how the War on Drugs shaped cannabis cultivation, public opinion and governance in the context of the U.S. versus the globe.
2021
Polson, M.
The Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research
There are shades of gray between cannabis legalization and prohibition. Exploring this gradient illuminates how shifts in power structures impact the social reality of cannabis production and regulation, as observed in California
2021
Bodwitch, H., Polson , M., Biber, E., Hickey, G. M., Butsic, V.
Journal of Rural Studies
Despite legalization, illicit cannabis production continues in California. Surveys reveal that small farmers face outsized burdens to compliance.
2021
Dillis, C., Biber, E., Bodwitch, H., Butsic, V., Carah, J., Parker-Shames, P., Polson, M. and Grantham, T.
Land Use Policy
How has legalization shaped patterns of farm location, size, land ownership, and regulatory compliance in California?
2021
Polsen, M. and Bodwitch, H.
Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene
Should collective systems of resource sharing developed under cannabis prohibition be explicitly addressed via legalization, policy, and programs?
2020
Polson, M.
Environmental and Planning D: Society and Space
As questions of cannabis legalization arise, exurbs struggle to differentiate the rural and urban.
2019
Polson, M., Petersen-Rockney, M.
California Agriculture
Siskiyou County, and many other counties in California, chose not to recognize cannabis cultivation as agriculture. This ethnographic study reveals the effects on parity in farmer rights and access to resources.
2019
Polson, M.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
How have environmental concerns become cover for injecting exploitation, inequality and stigma into the policy and regulation of cannabis production?
2018
Polson, M.
In Economy, Crime and Wrong in a Neoliberal Era
Long before legalization, the use and distribution of marijuana was framed in neoliberal market terms.
2017
Polson, M.
The Illicit in the Governance and Development of Cities, Regions, and Networks: Corrupt Places
Explore marijuana’s pivotal role in defining the development of Humboldt County in rural North Coast, California.
2015
Polson, M.
Territory, Politics, Governance
Power shifts in the governance of medical marijuana redefine ‘community’ and territorial production.
2013
Polson, M.
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
A state-land-finance complex emerges from a changing political economy of marijuana in California.