legal cannabis
The Great Social Experiment
Peter M. Birkeland
Author's note
Some people—if they know anything about cannabis—know about it from personal experience, whether that experience is current, recent, or decades ago. Other people have no real knowledge of cannabis, the cannabis subculture, or anything concerning the plant, the people who cultivate it, or use it.
This book is not about the cannabis experience. It is about the cannabis industry and the economic and social impact cannabis legalization has made in Colorado, the first State to legalize it.
About the author
In addition to The Great Social Experiment, Peter is the author of Franchising Dreams: The Lure of Entrepreneurship (University of Chicago Press). Since 2018 he has been a writing partner and coach on over two dozen books in business, entrepreneurship, startups, venture capital, crypto, franchising, and other topics. He has worked with multiple authors including Brad Feld, David Cohen, Matt Blumberg, Mahendra Ramsinghani, Jacques Benkoski, Marshall Hawks, and others.
table of contents
Legal Cannabis provides a comprehensive overview of the cannabis plant, and the people who cultivate, sell, use, and regulate it. It also covers medical marijuana and debates, both pros and cons, that surround legalization
Reviews
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Author's note
Colorado legalized cannabis in 2012 and the first dispensaries opened on January 1, 2014. Nearly overnight cannabis went from a clandestine black market to a legitimate regulated market, ushering in big business and competition for market control. The framework that Colorado used to regulate cannabis has largely been adopted by other states and communities. If legalization becomes a reality in your state, it’s likely that you will have a regulatory framework similar to Colorado’s, and likely that many of the same cannabis businesses will be cultivating, manufacturing, and carrying out retail sales.
Legal Cannabis will help you better understand the social and economic impact of cannabis legalization.
About
Peter has been featured on national media, including NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and To The Best of Our Knowledge, other national programs (Voice of America, Fox Business News) and multiple local and regional radio programs. He was named by Fortune as one of the “Top Ten Minds in Business.” He has a Ph.D. in economic sociology from the University of Chicago. In 2025 he relocated with his family from Colorado to his childhood home in Minnesota where he continues to write books and collaborate with authors.
To learn more about Peter's work, please visit www.peterbirkeland.com
table of contents
Introduction
• The Established Cannabis Operator
• Cannabis Sativa L.
• The Start-up Cannabis Entrepreneur
• The Regulators
• Why Colorado, Why 2012?
• Medical Marijuana
• Regulating Medical Marijuana
• The Rhetoric of Marijuana
• Opponents to Legalization
• Black Market Entrepreneurs
• Winners in Legal Cannabis
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• References
reviews
Legal Cannabis is a path breaking account of the economic and social consequences of cannabis legalization. Peter M. Birkeland provides an insider’s account of the challenges, questions, and debates encountered by cannabis business owners, regulators, and policy makers of the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize cannabis for personal use. The unique story of Colorado’s legalization efforts is likely to be repeated in other states, and Legal Cannabis is a must-read for anyone interested in an objective perspective, whether they live in the United States or other parts of the world.
— Blair Gifford, Professor of International Health Management at the University of Colorado-Denver and Founder of the non-profit, Global Healthcare Connections
Legal Cannabis is a well-written, important, and accessible book to a wide audience—business people and policy makers among them. Birkeland guides the reader through the details and processes of legalization so that by the end of the book, the cumulative effect is an understanding of the many threads in the development and implementation of legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado.
–University of Chicago Press reviewer and noted social science drug researcher
The legalization of cannabis is an issue that everybody has strong opinions about, one way or the other. Like it or not, it’s a reality in the twenty-first century, and Birkeland’s book gives an unbiased review of how we came to where we are today and what the future may hold. I was happy to find that this was not a dry, academic treatise, and I smiled and chuckled frequently even as the anecdotes made me think. Though thoroughly researched and referenced, the author looks at the cannabis’s impact on American society by peppering the book with homey interviews of the little people on the street as well as the power brokers in the halls of the mighty. Love it or loath it, cannabis is here to stay, and I heartily recommend Legal Cannabis: The Great Social Experiment to all wish to self-educate themselves while being entertained.
–Amazon Reviewer