diff --git a/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/driver.py b/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/driver.py
index c9ee498fa..7185fb77a 100644
--- a/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/driver.py
+++ b/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/driver.py
@@ -14,10 +14,10 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 
 import contextlib
+import json
 import sqlite3
 import uuid
 
-import msgpack
 from oslo.config import cfg
 
 from marconi.common import decorators
@@ -126,10 +126,10 @@ class DataDriver(storage.DataDriverBase):
         :param o: a Python str, unicode, int, long, float, bool, None
                   or a dict or list of %o
         """
-        return sqlite3.Binary(msgpack.dumps(o))
+        return sqlite3.Binary(json.dumps(o))
 
     sqlite3.register_converter('DOCUMENT', lambda s:
-                               msgpack.loads(s, encoding='utf-8'))
+                               json.loads(s, encoding='utf-8'))
 
     @staticmethod
     def uuid(o):
diff --git a/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/queues.py b/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/queues.py
index 686117297..9057e43f2 100644
--- a/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/queues.py
+++ b/marconi/queues/storage/sqlite/queues.py
@@ -77,10 +77,9 @@ class QueueController(base.QueueBase):
         if project is None:
             project = ''
 
-        # msgpack of {} is "\x80"
         self.driver.run('''
             insert or ignore into Queues
-            values (null, ?, ?, "\x80")
+            values (null, ?, ?, "{}")
         ''', project, name)
 
         return self.driver.affected