The following is an excerpt from Frederick Peterson, M.D.’s 1893 book In Egypt. Accounts like the one below, linking hasheesh use with insanity, spurred the British government to create the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission the same year Peterson’s book was published. The commission concluded that cannabis is relatively harmless and should not be prohibited. “There is much that is interesting in theRead more
Twenty years ago today, Canada’s justice system branded me a criminal. I had launched a constitutional challenge to the country’s cannabis laws after being arrested in 1995 for selling small cannabis plants from my London, Ontario shop. In August 1997, after weeks of expert testimony, Justice John McCart released a groundbreaking judgement that ruled cannabis is relatively harmlessRead more
In Des Moines, Iowa, during the early 1920s, cannabis was being sold at every pharmacy in the city. It came “in extract, powder or semisolid, or liquid form” and was available to anyone willing to register their name and address with a druggist. However, when state politician E. P. Harrison blamed an overdose for hisRead more
Bill Blair, the man now in charge of cannabis legalization in Canada, once oversaw “Project Growstop” for the Toronto Police. Starting in 2004, the campaign diverted “investigators, police, staff and equipment” from other tasks and focused them on cannabis gardens. Project Growstop had “some success;” the team identified and raided over 160 gardens within six months. However, despite anRead more
