Cannabis: The Hip History of Hemp: Cannibis Indica; Cannibis Sativa

This is the first illustrated book to present the complete story of cannabis. Here one will find a history - from ancient myths to today's on-going controversies - that stretches over 12,000 years. Cannabis has been used in many ways - spiritual, medicinal and recreational - in countries all round the globe. This book examines these uses and the many laws that have tried to suppress them. It also reveals the industry, both 'professional' and quite literally 'home-grown' that brings the weed to its millions of consumers. In addition, readers just what smokers 'high' and the way that cannabis is being rediscovered as a vital medicine in the treatment of diseases such as cancer, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. On a lighter note there are cannabis recipes, the wide-ranging slang of cannabis, and for those who've always wondered, a step-by-step guide to rolling a 'joint'. Cannabis has never been the focus of such fierce debate. The arguments over its affects, its legality, its dangers or benefits, over every aspect of what is, in the end, no more than a weed, have been thrust into headlines. Yet for most people, even the keenest of smokers, that weed remains a mystery. And with mystery comes misinformation. It the intention of Cannabis to bring that mystery to an end. Although its author cannot line up with the prohibitionists, it is not the intention of Cannabis to preach. It calls neither for praise nor for prohibition. Instead, at a time when the popularity of this weed is matched only by the overheated emotions it manages to generate, it aims above all to inform, and of course, to entertain.