MEDICAL CANNABIS INDUSTRY AND THE REFRACTED PUBLIC OF POLISH DRUG USERS FORUM

Resumen

Drug users use surface, deep, or dark web to enhance their activity. This paper examines the intersection of the digital space and illicit substances and analyzes a Polish drug forum as a refracted public (Abidin, 2021). To illuminate the accommodation of the medical cannabis industry in the social worlds of users, their digital presence below the radar is studied through qualitative thematic analysis of the content of the major Polish surface web drug forum. The study draws on more than 8000 forum posts. The results reveal that there has been a widespread subcultural accommodation of medical cannabis for non-medical use in the form of a backchannel about the quality of the product and ways of obtaining it. We also observed an emergence of self-care and reflexive cannabis narratives, where traditional cultural framing of the substance as source of fun and pleasure converged with medical purposes narrative. Also, complicated self-regulation of use was revealed based on experimenting with tolerance, acknowledging one’s harmful use, and counteracting potential harms. We also unveiled the peer harm reduction potential of this space. Taken together, the forum accumulates knowledge and know-how for the consumers that is otherwise lacking due to the illicit or stigmatized nature of the cannabis market in Poland. Looking at what the digitally enabled discussions reveal sheds light on the possible social accommodation of cannabis ahead of significant societal and legislative transformations.