Cannabis Culture: A Journey Through Disputed Territory [Paperback]

Most books about Cannabis tend to fall into two camps. There are the stoned travel ramblings of the super-enthusiast. And then there are the DIY guides, available mostly in 'head shops', consisting of lovingly illustrated pamphlets showing you how to turn your upstairs toilet into a hydroponic hash farm grossing two hundred grand a year. Despite a deep-rooted affection for his subject matter, Patrick Matthews Cannabis Culture: a Journey Through Disputed Territory is about as far from the typical dope book as a hand-rubbed Nepalese temple ball is from a lump of industrial grade Moroccan. With its highly readable prose and artful mixing of historic, legal, medical, scientific and social evidence, alongside considerable chunks of personal anecdote, Cannabis Culture offers a sophisticated multi- dimensional take on the subject of the world's favourite illegal recreational drug.

Matthews makes two important contributions to the debate on Cannabis. First, as befits a wine writer (Matthews is author of the award- winning wine book The Wild Bunch: Great Wines from Small Producers), he introduces the notion of cannabis connoisseurship. Cannabis has a "set of expectations, a way of talking about the experience, the rituals of sharing joints and an idea of how to get stoned and how to behave when stoned, all of which matter," he writes.

The difference from wine is that there connoisseurship is about taste because that is where the chemical complexity lies. With cannabis the opportunity for discernment lies in the effect because it contains over 60 different psycho-active compounds. He also argues that we should develop cannabis culture, not repress it. His point being that the best way to control abuse and overuse of any drug is through ritual and the evolution of social norms, not through legislation. He points to the way that alcohol damaged American Indian culture because it had no social context. And he slates drinks firms who are "aggressively keen to demystify what they sell--stripping it in effect of the ritual which helps limit its potential for harm. "

Although this is obviously a book for enthusiasts, it will also make an invaluable and informative read for worried parents, agents of the law and legislators, all of whom tend to be hopelessly ignorant when it comes to what cockneys call "Bob Hope" (dope). --Alex Benady

To some it's the 'Holy Herb', the healer of nations, the potential saviour of the planet, banned because of a conspiracy involving J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, the petrochemical industry and the yellow press. Others still see it as the deceptive weed that undermined Arab civilization. For millions of others in the west, it's no longer even controversial - legalized for many patients under American state laws, tolerated in Holland, and openly planted in hundreds of acres of Swiss Alps. But what do we really know about cannabis? Why does it make you stoned? Does it kill off brain cells? Why do different kinds of weed have different effects? In this book, the author returns to the Rizla-strewn world he knew before becoming an award-winning wine writer and finds that researchers have unravelled the complexities of this plant, uncovering in the process much of the chemistry of our minds and emotions. And, as well as scientists, the author meets a mixture of characters - the connoisseurs, criminals and cultivators, both in the UK and in the Third World, who together make up our new cannabis culture. The book features sections on Holland, Morocco and the United States.

Patrick Matthews is a freelance writer and journalist. He has contributed to numerous publications, including the INDEPENDENT, the MAIL ON SUNDAY, the GUARDIAN and TIME OUT. He won the 'Wines from France 1995 Premier Cru' award for wine writing and won the Glenfiddich award for his book THE WILD BUNCH: GREAT WINES FROM SMALL PRODUCERS in 1998. He is also a television producer and director, with credits on THE LATE SHOW, ARENA FOOD NIGHT and FOOD AND DRINK. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.