The emergence of problematic cannabis use as a network phenomenon

This study examines the emergence of problematic cannabis use as a dynamic, networked, and affective process. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and Deleuze's concept of affect, the analysis explores how shifting assemblages of human and non-human actors shape agency over time. The data consist of interviews with 23 participants and 16 written accounts submitted by individuals who self-identified their cannabis use as problematic. Through close reading of participants' narratives combined with network mapping, three phases were identified: opening, sustaining, and restricting networks. In the opening phase, network relations expand affective capacity by opening up new ways of thinking and extending the body's range of movement in space. In the sustaining phase, these relations stabilize as cannabis becomes part of everyday routines that reproduce familiar rhythms rather than generating new openings. In the restricting phase, configurations involving specific material fixators (such as the bed, sofa, or digital devices) begin to limit spatial, emotional, and embodied possibilities, resulting in a contraction of affective capacity. These phases offer a heuristic framework for analyzing how problematic use stabilizes within socio-material assemblages, rather than as an outcome of isolated individual vulnerabilities. This perspective contributes to ongoing discussions in drug research by emphasizing relational dynamics and may inform treatment by identifying core networked actors that sustain or limit agency. Future research should examine how restricting networks may unravel and give rise to new affective landscapes.