Description
Book SynopsisCannabis Britannica explores the historical origins of the UK''s legislation and regulations on cannabis preparations before 1928. It draws on published and unpublished sources from the seventeenth century onwards, from archives in the UK and India, to show how the history of cannabis and the British before the twentieth century was bound up with imperialism. James Mills argues that until the 1900s, most of the information and experience gathered by British sources were drawn from colonial contexts as imperial administrators governed and observed populations where use of cannabis was extensive and established. This is most obvious in the 1890s when British anti-opium campaigners in the House of Commons seized on the issue of Government of India excise duties on the cannabis trade in Asia in order to open up another front in their attacks on imperial administration. The result was that cannabis preparations became a matter of concern in Parliament which accordingly established the India
Trade ReviewReview from previous edition an amusing book to read, very well researched, and eminently readable. * Ann Widdecombe, Radio 4 Today programme *
Mills is even-handed in raising questions about the motives and methods of witnesses on all sides of the argument. * London Review of Books *
Mills's conclusions are salutary in the current cannabis debate. * London Review of Books *
An excellent account of the changing perceptions of a substance that has once again become the focus of attention ... a judicious mix of serious analysis and interesting anecdotes that shed light on the ongoing colourful career of cannabis * Zaheer Baber, Times Literary Supplement *
Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. 'Dr O'Shaughnessy appears to have made some experiments with charas': Imperial Merchants, Victorian Science, and Hemp to 1842 ; 3. 'From the old records of the Ganja Supervisor's Office': Smuggling, Trade, and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century British India ; 4. 'The Sikh who killed the Reverend was a known bhang drinker': Medicine, Murder, and Madness in Mid-century ; 5. 'The Lunatic Asylums of India are filled with ganja smokers': Ganja in Parliament 1891-1894 ; 6. 'A bow-legged boy running with a chest of tea between his legs': Reports, Experiments, and Hallucinations 1894-1912 ; 7. 'An allusion was made to hemp in the notes appended to the Hague Opium Convention': The League of Nations and British Legislation 1912-1928 ; 8. 'An outcome of cases that have come before the police courts of the use of hashish': DORA, the First World War, and the Domestic Drug Scares of the 1920s ; 9. Conclusion: Cannabis and the British Government, 1800-1928 ; Bibliography ; Index
