Athelstane Aamodt puts the debate about the legalisation of cannabis in perspective
Canada’s recent decision to legalise recreational cannabis use and the case of Billy Caldwell, the British 12-year-old whose epilepsy is treated with cannabis oil, has meant that the debate about the legalisation of cannabis (and indeed drugs in general) has come to the fore once again. However, the criminalisation of cannabis is, when one looks at how long the plant has been cultivated and used by humans (which is as long ago as 8000BC), an undeniably recent phenomenon, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with its status as a controlled drug.
Medicinal use of cannabis by both the Greeks and the Romans was common. For instance, in the ‘Histories’ of Herodotus (484–425 BC), the Scythians are described as indulging in cannabis vapour-baths (the equivalent of a modern-day sauna).
Over the centuries the use of cannabis spread, and became commonplace in the Middle East and Persia. In 1619, hemp was being openly and legally grown on the banks of the Potomac in colonial Virginia. During Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt, French soldiers,
