SCHEERER, Sebastian. North-American Bias and Non - American Roots of Cannabis Prohibition

8/10/2019 SCHEERER, Sebastian. North-American Bias and Non - American Roots of Cannabis Prohibition

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Sebastian Scheerer

North - American Bias and Non - American Roots of Cannabis Prohibition

There is something like a North American bias in both drug policyand drug policy

research. This bias takes many forms and contains a number of contradictions.Global drug policy, for instance, is being marketed to the general public as anemanation of the global villagers' volont gnrale, while serious analyses

convincingly show that it really rests on a highly coercive consensusmastermindedby just one international moral entrepreneur

1: the United States. Had it not been for

a century of big stick diplomacy, contemporary "narcotics control" would display the

diversity of present - day alcohol controls instead of the uniformity of internationalconventions. On the other hand, the U.S. did rely on other governments' prejudices,plans and interests concerning the prohibition of mind - altering substances. As a

matter of fact, any future reduction of the North American bias in drug researchmight

lead to a revaluation of the interactions between U.S. diplomacy and orientalgovernments to such an extent that the U.S.A. might even have to share the credit

(and blame) for the global prohibition regime with some hitherto hiddenentrepreneurs.

The North American bias also affects the literary production of Americans and Non -Americans alike. While the former tend to exaggerate the relevance of domestic(U.S.) events for developments on the global level, the latter tend to simply repeat

the sacred texts of U.S. research, thereby contributing to the dwarfing of the role ofnon - American influences. This over - exposure to American sources alreadyresulted in an outright "U.S. - centrism", which nothing less than falsifies, for

instance, the accounts of the history of global cocaine prohibition.2

Both the history of cocaine prohibition and that of cannabis prohibition come to

underline the necessity to pay more attention to non - American actors, factors andconditions.

3The conventional historiography of cannabis prohibition focuses on

Harry Anslinger and the Marihuana Tax Act. While this is justified with regard to

domestic U.S. policy developments, U.S. literature also tends to convey theimpression that this episode was also responsible for the emergence of the globalcannabis prohibition regime.

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The fact is, though, that Anslinger only became Commissioner of Narcotics in 1930,and the Marihuana Tax Act was signed by President Roosevelt only in 1937, while

the League of Nations had already taken its decision to include cannabis in theopium convention's prohibition regime in early 1925.

5The Marihuana Tax Act thus

looks much less like the insinuated starting point for cannabis prohibition than like

just one (if over - moralized) step in the implementation of the Second Genevaconvention. As far as the emergence of the global cannabis prohibition regime isconcerned our interest has to turn from the thirties to the twenties, and from the U.S.

to the Palais des Nationsin Geneva, Switzerland, where the League of Nations hadits seat. In Geneva, the U.S.A. did not play a leading role at first, since they were nota member of the League of Nations during its first years. The Advisory Committee on


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Traffic in Opium held its first three meetings (starting in May, 1921) without theU.S.A., who only joined in time for the fourth meeting in January, 1923. But eventhen the U.S. did not strive for a central role in cannabis matters. At least not up on

the frontstage.6Instead, the protagonists of this drama were Italy, South Africa,

Egypt and Turkey.

Their interests in the globalization of cannabis prohibition has not yet been made theobject of systematic study, but future research is likely to shed some light on hithertounknown roots of narcotics control. Roots that lead beyond the cultural context ofpuritanism and bureaucracy in which this question is normally being discussed.

i. Italy

Towards the end of the 19th century Great Britain had not only come under severe

pressure from the U.S.A. and world opinion because of her immoral opium exportsfrom India to China, but there was also a certain concern in the House of Commons

about the effects of the widespread consumption of Indian hemp in large parts of thesubcontinent. In response to such an inquiry by members of the Commons, herMajesty's government sent a note to the Indian government asking for theestablishment of an official commission. This commission produced one of the most

thorough reports on cannabis and the potential reasons for its prohibition. Thecommission concluded that a prohibition would be an unjustified infringement ofliberty and of questionable value for public health.

7

After the turn of the century, and in response to the invitation to The Hague, theItalian government proposed (in 1910 or 1911) "that the production and traffic in the

Indian hemp drugs be included as part of the program of the conference".8While

cannabis was not dealt with in the Hague Convention of 1912, the participants of theconference did agree on "the advisability of the study of the question of the Indian

hemp drugs from the statistical and scientific standpoint with a view to regulatingtheir misuse should the necessity thereof make itself felt."

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ii. South Africa (1923)

After World War I, ratification of the Hague Convention was made an explicit

condition in the different peace treaties (Versailles, St. Germain, Trianon, Neuiily,

Svres). The League of Nations was entrusted with the surveillance of compliance.In 1922, the League's Advisory Committee mentioned "a list of drugs not covered by

the Convention of 1912, communicated by the French government" - a list which justmight have mentioned cannabis as a dangerous drug in need of control - and thatthis list "should be referred to the interested governments for their observations."

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In 1923, the Union of South Africa explicitly proposed that Indian hemp be treated asone of the habit - forming drugs. The Advisory Committee decided to ask the Councilof the League of Nations to invite its member governments to furnish to the League

"information as to the production and use of, and traffic in, this substance in theirterritories, together with their observations on the proposal of the Government of theUnion of South Africa. The Committee further recommends that the question should


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be considered at the annual session of the Advisory Committee to be held in1925."

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The South African initiative was the decisive step, even if it did not reach immediate

modifications of the convention. But the proposal was to be revived shortlyafterwards by Egypt and Turkey, with the result that cannabis was accorded the

same status as opiates and cocaine. South Africa herself had passed anti - cannabislegislation as early as 1911, probably because of resentment against cannabis useamong the black population, including mine workers. While it should not be toodifficult to find out about the details of South Africa's 1923 initiative, such an effort

has yet to be taken.

iii. Egypt and Turkey (1924)

Egypt and Turkey returned to the cannabis problem in 1924, proposing to includethe drug into the opium convention. While the general framework of international

prohibition had been set up because decades of U.S. - American efforts in thatdirection, it is on the other hand highly unlikely that the cannabis dislike of bothEgypt and Turkey should also have been a product of U.S. influence. The reasonsare simple. For one thing, cannabis had been considered "the weed of the poor",

hashishat al - foqara, all over the Islamic orient for at least 700 years preceding theGeneva conference. Small wonder therefore that, at least among the ruling class,cannabis was held in low esteem. This all the more since cannabis was not only

associated with economic marginalization, but also with religious deviance. Thisleads us to the (hitherto neglected) cannabis - and - heresy - linkthat could helpexplain the prohibitionist zeal of oriental elites. It was - among others - Rudolf

Gelpke who called attention to the fact that both the Arabic and the Persian terms for

poor(faqirand darwish) express an interesting association between poverty and theascetic and/or ecstatic search for God.

12Not only in northern Africa there were a

number of religious orders - like that of the Heddawa- that practiced a cult aroundcannabis products (hashish, kif, ma'dshun) and propagated both ecstasy and dismalpoverty as pathways to paradise.

13Among the Heddawa, but also among numerous

mysticists and religious orders, one of the older words of the prophet was held inhigh esteem: faqri fakhri(my poverty is my pride). But since this belief often wenttogether with a decidedly anti - authoritarian habitus

14, these orders often provoked

the suspicion of heresy in the ranks of the clerical establishment. The popularity ofcannabis with many of these religious minorities, including at certain times and

places the highly controversial and often politically suspect sufi way of knowledge,certainly did not contribute to an image of harmlessness of the drug. One just has toremember the association between cannabis use and political terrorism entertainedby the sunnite enemies of the Nezaris (or "Order of the Assassins") who - from their

headquarters at Alamut in Northern Persia - spread fear and loathing over much ofthe Orient and Europe between 1090 and 1256 AD

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In the 19th century, cannabis came to be associated less with religious heresy thanwith insanity. The Egyptian delegate at the League of Nations argued for theprohibition of cannabis with reference to the predominantly male population in


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Egyptian insane asylums (whereas nations without cannabis had a predominantlyfemale asylum population).

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Conclusion

This was just a very rough sketch of hitherto neglected links in the history of

cannabis prohibition. Any further research in this direction might well be hazardousto the North American bias in our conventional knowledge. But that should not be theworst of reasons to continue doing it. In the end we will have a clearer, more

realistic, and less contradictory picture of the emergence and persistence of thephenomenon of global prohibition.

1 For the terminology used cf. Ethan Nadelmann, Global prohibition regimes: the evolution of norms in international society.International Organization 44, 4, Autumn 1990: 479 - 526.

2The accepted history of cocaine prohibition fails to explain the sudden inclusion of this drug into the 1912 Opium Convention -

simply because of its focus on domestic U.S. campaigns against cocaine, and in complete neglect of the British - Germaneconomic and diplomatic rivalry that led Britain to surprise the whole world with the proposal to include cocaine in the opiumconvention (cf. my article, Einige Anmerkungen zur Geschichte des Drogenproblems, in: Soziale Probleme 4.1993: 78 - 98)

3 For just one example of alienation in historical drug research think of the fact that in Germany, for instance, every scholar knows

David Musto's 1973 book on the origins of narcotic control, but few are acquainted with the equally excellent study by AlbertWissler that could both enrich and correct some parts of Musto's - and which was published in 1931. Cf. Albert Wissler, DieOpiumfrage. Jena 1931

4Cf. Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. The Free Press of Glencoe, New York, 1963; critical of

Becker's findings: Donald T. Dickson, Bureaucracy and Morality: An organizational perspective on a moral crusade. Social

Problems 16. 1968: 143 - 156. Also cf. David F. Musto, The American Disease. Origins of Narcotic Control. Yale University

Press, New Haven and London 1973: 210 - 2295When cannabis prohibition was put to vote in Geneva, Great Britain and the Netherlands abstained. Germany voted in favor of

prohibition after a deal with Egypt concerning the importation of manufactured drugs. The only country who, in response to a

survey on negative effects of cannabis consumption, had reported any such experience, had been Portugal (presumably with

relation to her African possessions). On the 19th of February, 9 powers voted in favor and 7 against the motion to include

cannabis in the opium convention and to thereby oblige all governments to pass the respective national legislation.6Of course it is not impossible that there was some American manoevering behind these motions - and that the three countries had

only introduced their propositions in response to North American pressure or promises. But if such a link existed, it yet wouldhave to be unearthed.

7Cf. Report of the Indian Hemp Drug Commission. Printed at the Government Central Printing Office, 1894

8Hamilton Wright, The International Opium Conference. Amer. Jour. of International Law. October 1912, January 1913, cited after

Terry/Pellens, The Opium Problem, 1929, reprint Montclair, New Jersey 1970: 6369Procol de cloture (see Hamilton Wright in Terry/Pellens op.cit.: 645)

10Cf. Terry/Pellens op.cit.: 667

11Cf. Terry/Pellens op.cit.: 693

12Cf. the rich and impressive work of the orientalist R. Gelpke, Drogen und Seelenerweiterung. Stuttgart: Kindler (o.J., 1966?).

Gelpke refers to an author by the name of al - Marqrizi who wrote that the knowledge about hashish came from India viaYemen, Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria. He reports that the founder of a religious order - sheikh Haidar (died in 1051) -had allowed his followers in Eastern Persia to use hashish, but had told them not to admit to their custom in public; cf. Gelpke

op.cit.: 118; also R. Brunel, Le monachisme errant dans l'Islam, Paris 1955: 28113

For poverty and hashish in Morocco, cf. Brunel, op.cit.; for hashish as a means to catch a glimpse of paradise cf. the story of the143th night (1001 Nights) in Gelpke op.cit.: 90 - 92

14 For faqri fakhri cf. Annemarie Schimmel, Der Islam. Eine Einfhrung. Stuttgart: Reclam 1990: 92; for links with drug use cf.

Gelpke op.cit.: pp 72 - 74; for the chronic anarchism of the sufis who used the words "government" and "evil" as synonyms, cf.Annemarie Schimmel, Mystische Dimensionen des Islam. Die Geschichte des Sufismus. Frankfurt/Leipzig 1995: 54

15Their terrorism is an undisputed fact, but not so their predilection for cannabis (cf. Gelpke op.cit.: 96 - 122). Bernard Lewis in his

classical study (cf. The Assassins. A Radical Sect in Islam. London: George Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1967; Die Assassinen.

Zur Tradition des religisen Mordes im radikalen Islam, Frankfurt: Eichborn 1989) even seems convinced that the Order of the

Assassins did not indulge in cannabis consumption. - But if they did not and were only stigmatized by their enemies as

hashishinthis would only show even more clearly in what low regard cannabis use was among the ruling orthodoxy.16

Cf. Rudolf Walter Leonhart, Haschisch - Report. Mnchen: Piper 1970: 20. Even in Greece, cannabis came to be regarded as a

dangerous weed with the influx of Greeks from Asia Minor following Greek independence in the early 19th century. Those


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Greeks (from Smyrna) who suffered social degradation by the "real" Greeks until recently were considered barbarians because

of their poverty, but also their assimilation to (bad) turkish customs in terms of (arabic) music and cannabis consumption, the

latter one was seen as conducive to social marginalization and psychic disorders, if not political revolt.

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SCHEERER, Sebastian. North-American Bias and Non - American Roots of Cannabis Prohibition