Prohibited commoning

Oddly, criminal prohibition can lead to “commoning,” when individuals, left unprotected by state and formal property rights, innovate collective systems access, use, benefit from illegalized resources. “Legalization” entails the conversion of these prohibited commons legal systems, bringing new freedoms liberties as well dispossession collectively generated assets (material, relational, otherwise). This paradox legalization is currently playing out among U.S. states moving legalize cannabis. Motivated failures cannabis its grievous harms, question looms: How will markets grapple with relational under prohibition? Building ethnographic research survey data, this article argues for recognition commoning practices that produced resources upon which market based. These illuminate ways may deliver not only regulation but also emancipatory justice in wake War on Drugs. First, we document cultivators, benefits they prohibition, how affecting dynamics. Second, explore strategies, like allotment pricing build achieve greater potential legalization.