What is it about?
From the 13th century CET onwards jurists started to write texts on narcotics - and mostly on hashish. At first these texts were argumentative, bringing forward points pro and contra the use of hashish. The ones which followed in the centuries after gathered more and more information on narcotics: I.e. historical reports about the spread of the use of hashish, medicinal knowledge and even poems on hashish. Furthermore, in some of them other narcotics were included. Through the centuries these monographs constantly grew, each using material from the ones before and adding new aspects and content.
Featured Image
Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The spreading and increasing use and abuse of narcotics in society sparked the writing of the first of these monographs. The earliest we know were pamphlets pro and contra narcotics, written by jurists and hardly more than just that. After these early pamphlets, texts on narcotics became literary pieces of art gathering everything there was to know about narcotics: Juridical standpoints, medicinal aspects, poetry, lore. One can see from the overview of these works how they developed and how more and more questions needed answering and the whole subject of narcotics increased in importance.
Perspectives
This is one of my favourite chapters of my book, because all the aspects that were discussed in these treatises make them very interesting texts and very interesting reads. Extrapolating the various aspects and presenting them side by side was an extraordinary experience.
Dr. Thomas Thiemann
Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: „Haschisch-Traktate“: Monografische Abhandlungen über Betäubungsmittel, January 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004722385_006.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
