Is Cannabis Tourism Deviant? A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

With the growth of cannabis tourism, destinations such as the Netherlands have begun to offer cannabis-related products and services to visitors, including tourists from countries where all drugs are strictly prohibited. Yet limited research has sought to understand cannabis-oriented tourists' efforts to neutralize deviant connotations, namely by justifying or rationalizing misbehavior, when deciding to participate in cannabis tourism. This research note proposes a framework of deviant consumption behavior (DCB) constructed of geographic shifting, self-identity shifting, and moral identity shifting from the perspective of cannabis-oriented tourists to delineate tourists' decision-making process around engaging in deviant behaviors. The proposed framework suggests that previously developed DCB frameworks in the marketing and consumer behavior literature should be adapted for use in outbound tourism research. This research note also highlights areas for debate and investigation regarding cannabis tourists' deviant behavior. Future research directions are provided based on the proposed framework as it applies to deviant tourism research.