Tolerating Deviance: Drug Tourism and Normalization of Cannabis

Abstract: Aim of this study is to explore the term normalization as a social process that shifts the level of tolerance in societies through examination of the association between cannabis usage as daily life leisure activity and the growing tolerance of this substance use. Contemporary studies suggest that consumption and usage of cannabis should be examined as any other social processes, which are unavoidable and widespread activities that are continuously changing, rather than the more traditional approach to the topic where scholars have generally categorized it as a deviant or pathological behaviour, which has been seen as socially condemned and subsisted at the margins of society. If the anthropological approach and studies are to understand the native’s point of view and the structures which shape this understanding, then the traditional approach on the subject are overlooking this phenomenon and are over-generalising people’s behaviour to a universal phenomenon. Although this paper is not mainly about the social identification of cannabis consumers, the new insight on the social forces that is creating this identity is called for, and the contemporary researches are providing methods that can be used to comprehend this behaviour in a wider context. Data collected for this work are researches that are approaching new scientific theories about cannabis consumption in West, and are providing evidence for shifts in level of tolerance, which are the central point of normalization thesis, of which I use here to relate to tourism.