Sociologist Kathy Charmaz describes how to perform grounded theory by, “You begin with an area to study. Then, you build your theoretical analysis on what you discover is relevant in the actual worlds that you study within this area.” . A grounded theory approach gives extra credence to the interactionist nature of the study because my opinions and interpretations of the practice of marijuana use and selling is not clouded by preconceived notions of what I expect to find. Research Setting The study will take place in Costa Mesa, California, following a community of heavy marijuana users and sellers who participate in the partially illicit marijuana trade. All participants names in this study will be changed to conceal their identity. Costa Mesa is a city in Orange County with a population of about 100,000 inhabitants. It is nestled between the extremely upper class, predominantly white area of Newport Beach and Irvine , and the poorer, older, larger and predominantly Latino cities of Santa Ana and Anaheim3 . Costa Mesa is a type of buffer zone between the haves and have-nots in Orange County and it is from this offset situation that the group gets its unique racial and class character . Furthermore, this balanced and relatively stable environment allows the group to avoid the more dangerous nuances of the illicit substance trade while serving as a mechanism where they still have a constant supply of customers from both the richer and poorer elements of the county. The main meeting place for the group is The Corner . The other common “kick it” spot for the group is Natty’s mother’s house. The house is near a popular pool hall in the city of Costa Mesa. It is an older wood house with a front porch type stoop that serves as a gathering and kick it point for the CottonMouth Kings.
Although just off the largest street in Costa Mesa , weed growing systems marijuana is smoked openly on the porch, and Natty Dreads Mother is surprisingly permissive of the behavior. Many nights begin at the House and end at the pool hall and many transactions occur at both locations. The group I decided to research was a cannabis selling and smoking group based in Mid-Orange County. I decided to use the group understudy for two main reasons. One, through a social-network snowball sampling I was able to get in contact with the members of the group. And two, the members of the group each had years of experience smoking, growing and selling cannabis in both the illegal market and the semi-legal medical marijuana market. This gave me the added benefit of comparing cannabis markets before and after the medical marijuana system. Furthermore, having access to a unique set of individuals who participate in a semi-legal, and partially illegal economic venture provided rich data for an under explored market dynamic. This, combined with the groups unique beliefs about cannabis and its beliefs about their own cannabis selling behavior and what it meant made for a fascinatingly rich and distinctive ethnography. Moreover, I chose this group of individuals because of unique characteristics of the group understudy. For one, the group members are not young teenagers. In fact, they are in their late twenties and early thirties and many are parents. Most criminological research examining drug users and sellers focuses on teenage offenders. Two, the members are not dispossessed minorities selling drugs in a dangerous urban area for survival. The study takes place in a relatively middle class area of Orange County with other legitimate economic ventures to pursue. And three, the members are not the typical rich drug dealers documented in films likeScarface. The relative normality of the group with their unique perspective on cannabis and cannabis selling led me to study this group. I provided confidentiality to the participants of the study. Since I as the researcher can identify the members of the study the project is not anonymous. However, all steps possible were taken to insure the confidentiality of the study’s participants.
The names and ages of all participants have been changed. I paid close attention to make sure there was no way to be able to discern the actual identity of the study’s participants. Moreover, the city, and certain locations discussed in the preceding chapters are meant to be purposefully misleading in case anybody who is familiar with the area or with the people I study were to try to determine the actual identity of the participants of the dispensary in the study. Psuedonyms are particularly relevant for qualitative researchers to assure that deductive disclosure does not occur. Deductive disclosure occurs when individual traits of individuals or groups makes them identifiable in research reports . Qualitiative research, and ethnographic research in particular tends to be rich, descriptive and vivid. For this reason, researchers need to pay particular attention to not tipping off potential readers to the actual identities of the participants. Breaches in confidentiality also have the potential to damage the public’s trust in researchers . One famous case of deductive disclosure was Carolyn Ellis’s Fisher Folk . The research participants were able to identify themselves and their neighbors and people from neighboring communities were able to identify them. Ellis later went on to write that the research participants felt ashamed and betrayed by her book . Because of these problems, simple name changes were not enough to protect the anonymity of my informants since deductive disclosure is a possibility. Thus, other aspects such as age and location were changed as well. I employed a confidentiality approach that Kaiser termed the Dominant approach. Although Kaiser is not a proponent of the approach is was ideal for my particular study. I chose to name the group the CM Kings for a couple of reasons. First, they do not consider themselves a gang and thus have no formal name for themselves. Rather, the Kings are a compilation of a group of friends that sold and grew in various capacities and eventually pulled their resources together to set up a marijuana dispensary. However, the name serves another purpose. I use the name as a play on Sudir Venkatesh’s Black Kings. In Gang Leader for A Day Venkatesh chronicles the structure and practices of urban drug dealers on the streets of Southside Chicago.
In this study I counter Venkatesh notion that drug markets are inherently dangerous and violent by showing the structure of suburban cannabis markets and the semi-legal medical marijuana markets and its success in stifling crime and violence in the market.Although not traditionally defined as vulnerable populations such as children, the mentally disabled or individuals with low social status, research on criminal populations present unique challenges for the researcher. Because of the unique circumstances of doing criminological research, the American Society of Criminologist code of ethics states, in relation to research populations that they: a. comply with appropriate federal and institutional requirements pertaining to the proper review and approval for research that involves human research subjects, materials, indoor farming systems and procedures; b. do not mislead respondents as to purposes for which that research is being conducted; c. ensure subjects’ rights of personal anonymity unless they are waived; d. ensure confidentiality of any data not obtained from records open to public scrutiny; e. anticipate potential threats to confidentiality, including the Freedom of Information Act, and adopt various means of coding, storing, and maintaining data to protect the confidentiality of research subjects; f. fully inform potential subjects in cases in which they are unable to guarantee confidentiality; g. make every effort to ensure the safety and security of respondents and project staff; h. obtain informed consent when the risks of research are greater than the risks of everyday life; and i. take special efforts when individuals studied are illiterate, are mentally ill, are minors, have low social status, are not comfortable or familiar with the language being used in the research, are under judicial or penal supervision, or are unfamiliar with social research and its constraints and purposes. . I made sure to follow all the research ethics and more. Social research, by its very nature represents an invasion of people’s daily lives. Moreover, criminological research ask respondents to reveal deviant behavior that may have lasting ramifications such as potential arrest and imprisonement, beyond the study. Revealing information may harm the participants so extra care was taken to shield the participants from potential harm.I attained informed consent from all the study’s participants. Consent forms provide valid and legitimate documentation that the subjects knowingly participated in the project. Notwithstanding, as Dixon noted several years ago research of criminal populations, “is coming under increasing threat from institutional ethics committees which have raised legal and ethical objections to proposed projects” . In particular, Dixon notes the inability of researchers to protect the confidentiality of research subjects, particularly when illegal activities are concerned. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Roberts , signed consent forms provide an identifying link between the participant and the data.
However, they were collected at the request of the University of California, Riverside Human Research Review Board. Yet, as stated earlier, the acitivities of the participants are legal in the state of California where the research was conducted. Natty Dreads is the key informant of the group and the access I have to the group. Thus, to some degree, the study is filtered through the lens of his and my eyes. I met Natty Dreads approximately 15 years ago in high school. At that time, he did not smoke. His transition into marijuana culture was relatively abrupt. Living down the street from me made it convenient to hang with Natty on a relatively frequent basis. In-depth face-to-face interviewing will be conducted with the study’s participants, using an interview question list that will consist of three parts: history of substance and marijuana use, what marijuana culture and marijuana smoking and selling means to them and questions about why the respondent continues to participate in these acts. The interviews lasted approximately two hours each, with follow up interviews conducted as new developments that I witnessed occured, or, if the respondents decided they wanted to share more information about their views on marijuana use. The interviews were semistructured for the purpose of getting the conversation flowing and to learn various demographic and social history factors, but the main purpose of the interviews was to let the group members discuss what marijuana use and dealing means to them and why they participate. Other than a few preset questions, I did not script or prime the interviewees towards certain answers. I allowed the respondents to express what marijuana culture means to them. The interview questionnaire is listed in the appendix. The field notes were recorded in the language my informants spoke and decoded in the dissertation so that is understandable to academics. My informants spoke a form of English heavily coded in marijuana slang. The group frequently discusses marijuana openly but the coded language allows them to stay undetected by non-users. Using phrases like “gaining knowledge” to represent smoking marijuana is one such technique. After recording conversations and viewing the surrounding environment, I will take the condensed account and expand it to discuss relevant information that I did not have time to write down while in the field. Ethnographer James Spradley considers this to be an integral part of ethnographic methods because it allows the ethnographer to fill in detail and record things that were not possible in the field. A key aspect of “grounded theory” ethnographies is an analysis that is inductive, interactive and recursive. Inductive research identifies data and amasses them into larger taxonomies and categories. These categories are explored in interviews as well as in participation and observation to test their internal validity. New observations are compared and contrasted until stable patterns emerge that begins to explain cultural practices. Recursivity refers to the cyclical nature of this process as it moves from inductive analysis, in which the theory is created based on what is observed, and deductive processes through which the datum is compared to the theory. This iterative model is the process I intend to use while in the field to understand the practice of marijuana use. This works by continually raising questions in the field and modifying and clarifying ideas about what is discovered.