An exploration of the history of cannabis use and prohibition in the French imperial nation-state.
David A. Guba, Jr, is a faculty member at Bard High School Early College in Baltimore, Maryland.
"Taming Cannabis provides an interesting analysis of the national
and transnational exchange of knowledge and the ways in which such
knowledge, in the case of intoxicants, can be based on the endless
repetition of false and irrational information. David Guba
establishes the complicated relationship between the drug, the
assimilative policies and politics of the French Empire, and the
tensions that could result between the indigenous peoples and the
French settler communities." Patricia Barton, University of
Strathclyde
"Taming Cannabis compellingly tells the story of how French
discussions of cannabis took shape through consistent references to
the Arab and Muslim worlds. As David Guba maps out, this history
has much to tell us about current French understandings of drugs,
illegality, and danger, speaking to multiple and pressing
historiographical discussions." Todd Shepard, Johns Hopkins
University and author of Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979
"Guba's study is a landmark publication as it tackles for the first
time the history of cannabis in France. It is all the more
convincing for being thoroughly-researched, and is as readable as
it is significant. He carefully demonstrates that the first French
encounters with cannabis products during the period when the nation
was seeking to build a North African empire ensured that ideas
about those substances were little more than Orientalist myths
created by colonial fantasists. His conclusion, that these myths
still shape racist ideas about cannabis products and their
consumers in policy and police circles to this day, is compelling
and controversial." James H. Mills, University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, and the author of Cannabis Nation: Control and Consumption
in Britain, 1928-2008
"[Taming Cannabis] expands our knowledge of the history of cannabis
in France, and the imperial legacy on policy around cannabis and
drugs generally. The book is academically rigorous as well as an
entertaining read. It would be of interest to historians of public
health, drugs and policy, but also to policymakers or anyone
interested in France, cannabis and colonial legacies."
Addiction
"Given that we are now beginning to disentangle cannabis from other
'illiegal drugs' with decriminilization and legalization,
understanding how cannabis' fits into the larger picture of drug
history will become increasingly important. Based on his excellent
work in Taming Cannabis, one hopes Guba is among the scholars who
takes the lead in helping historians answer these questions in the
future." Social History of Medicine
“David Guba’s Taming Cannabis explores every facet of colonial
France’s authoritative dominance and xenophobic policies to drive a
narrative of social obedience and control. More than ever, the
untold history of cannabis legislation in France is needed to
understand how cannabis in the Western world has been vilified to
profile ethnic and religious minorities.” Greenslensblog.com
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