The industrial assumption of cannabis regulation: bureaucracy, care and cultivation in Argentina
How an inclusive regulatory framework can rely on verification instruments calibrated to an imagined, firm-shaped producer.
Abstract
This paper develops the concept of the industrial assumption of regulation: the tacit calibration of compliance instruments to an imagined firm-shaped producer.
It analyses how Argentina’s medical cannabis framework distributes compliance costs across household, collective and licensed cultivation.
The research draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Buenos Aires between 2020 and 2025, including longitudinal observation of household growers and collective organisations, administrative procedures, regulatory inspections, legislative debates and documentary analysis.
The paper argues that an inclusive regulatory architecture can nevertheless rely on verification instruments designed around organisational capacities associated with firms. These requirements redistribute regulatory costs unevenly and can place disproportionate administrative burdens on patients and collective cultivation organisations.
Keywords
- Cannabis Regulation
- Bureaucracy
- Care
- Governance
- Administrative Burden
- Multispecies Studies
- Science and Technology Studies
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