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22 Alb. L.J. Sci. & Tech. 103 (2012)
The Forensic Identification of Marijuana: Suspicion, Moral Danger, and the Creation of Non-Psychoactive THC

handle is hein.journals/albnyst22 and id is 111 raw text is: THE FORENSIC IDENTIFICATION OF MARIJUANA: SUSPICION, MORAL DANGER, AND THE CREATION OF NON-PSYCHOACTIVE THC Aaron Roussell* ABSTRACT Federal and state laws present marijuana as a dangerous substance requiring coercive control and forbid private citizens from possessing, selling, or growing it. Possession cases brought under these laws depend on a forensic confirmation of taxonomic identity as Cannabis sativa to establish and successfully prosecute a case. Hemp Industries Association v. DEA (2003), a recent federal appeals court ruling, is at odds with this forensic process. American citizens may legally possess and even consume a similar substance-hemp and its derivatives-which can be made into such everyday objects as clothing, rope, and food products. Yet these two plants are both Cannabis sativa and differ only in physical structure and degree of natural Department of Criminology, Law & Society, University of California, Irvine. Address correspondence to Aaron Roussell, Department of Criminology, Law & Society, University of California, Irvine, Social Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697; email: roussell@uci.edu. 949-943-9860 Thanks to Professors Simon Cole, Justin Richland, Michael Clegg, and Dr. Fred Whitehurst for their direct or indirect contributions and assistance, as well as Akhila Ananth, Vivek Mittal, and Trish Goforth for their help with paper drafts and the editorial staff of the Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology for their superb efforts to improve the final version. Mistakes and weaknesses herein are entirely in spite of their efforts and remain the sole dominion of the author. Aaron Roussell is a PhD candidate in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. He earned his MA in Sociology at the University of Wyoming. He has published in Crime & Delinquency and Criminal Justice Policy Review. His current research interests include research methods, drugs and addiction, structural crime correlates, urban ethnography, and critical theory.

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