Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana—Medical, Recreational and Scientific

By Martin A. Lee

Scribner

Smoke Signals isn’t the only marijuana-themed book to attempt to give a definitive history to a plant that’s bedazzled and bedeviled humanity for eons. That being said, Martin Lee’s massive, 492-page tome is a researched-to-the-gills chronicle of cannabis’ twisting, intricate—sometimes confrontational—thread across the skein of human history. From the U.S. Army’s failed (and comical) attempts to create a powerful, anti-personnel agent ready for use on the battlefield to the New Left’s waving of the marijuana flag to embolden revolution and protest, Smoke Signals clearly and unabashedly spells out the hope and hypocrisy, the conflict and compassion behind the planet’s most famous (drug warriors would say “infamous”) plant and its fervent advocates and proponents. U.S. drug laws are wrong and need to be reformed. Smoke Signals shows readers how we got here . . . and why we need to move away from prohibition. A scholarly yet entertaining textbook for the legalization camp.