In this research we will study how integrated cannabis users’personal identities are linked with images of their identities as created by local drug policy discourses. In doing so, we depart from a critical criminological framework which hypothesizes that the power to define behaviour as problematic or illegal –in this case recreational cannabis consumption –is unequally distributed in society. Labeled individuals manage this status in one way or another and are acknowledged in their possibilities of agency and resistance (Becker, 1963). This framework allows us to study both processes of identity construction (by cannabis users and by local policies) and the relation between these processes, with enough attention for users’insiders’perspectives and the complexity of sociopolitical mechanisms. Furthermore, we integrate theoretical insights generated by previous studies in this matter (Rødner, 2005; Rødner Sznitman, 2008; Sandberg, 2012).

We will study personal and policies’identity constructions in a qualitative research design by conducting in depth-interviews with users, netnographic research and a critical discourse analysis of local drug policies in Antwerp and Ghent. In contrast with previous research, we examine policy discourses and users' narratives in depth within the same study. This research will add to theoretical insights of the policy-user nexus, provides a voice to users and brings nuance in current (inter) national debates about the soft-drug policy.