Cannabis prohibition (1/3)

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign, 1863 (sketch for the 1867 painting), 21 x 33 cm, The State Heritage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

In 1800, in the cause of health and public order, General Menou decrees the first French ban on the consumption of cannabis.

   For France, the history of cannabis prohibition begins in Egypt. In 1798, the Directory sends General Bonaparte to take over the land of the ancient Pharaohs with a view to cut Britain’s quickest trade route to India. After the Battle of Abukir (1st and 2nd August 1798) which yields the control of the sea to the Royal Navy, the French expeditionary force finds itself captive of its own conquest. When it is not busy crushing riots – such the Revolt of Cairo in April 1798 – or waging war against the Turks and their Mamluk allies, the Armée d’Orient gets to acquaint itself with local mores among which hashish consumption.

   Indeed, the practice was both ancient and widespread in Egypt. Used in medical and religious frameworks since the highest antiquity, the substance was by then sold in every city’s markets, shops and cafés, no matter the size. Labourers, tradesmen and members of Sufi sects mixed it to honey or spices, sometimes added to their coffee. Others smoke it in a hookah. They all sought, forbidden though it was by the Quran, a state of inebriation also rebuked by religious authorities and Sunni elites. Marooned, French regulars left to their own devices were soon given over to the diverse preparations obtainable from the flowers, leaves, seeds or sap of cannabis sativa.

   Informed of the political difficulties faced by the Directory and aware of the entrapment of the expedition under his command, Napoléon Bonaparte left Egypt in August 1799 after entrusting the army command to Jean Baptiste Kleber. The 20 March 1800 victory over Ottoman troops at Heliopolis notwithstanding, the situation deteriorated further during the following months as  exactions against the local people increased fuelling resentment against the French. In June 1800 Kleber was murdered by a Syrian student. Jacques de Menou, the longest-serving general on site, succeeded him at the head of operations in Egypt.

   It is against this turbulent background that the General promulgates on 17 Vendemiaire an IX, that is the 9th of October 1800, an order forbidding “throughout Egypt […] the usage of the strong liquor made by some Muslims with a certain herb named hashish as well as that of smoking cannabis seed”. Whereupon a good many ghorzas (semi-clandestine smoking houses) and other Moorish cafés, mainly patronised by the lower classes are closed as offenders face heavy fines and prison sentences.

   Officially, this decision is taken in the name of public health and law and order: according to Menou who relies on reports from his subordinates in post at Rosetta and Alexandria, hashish causes its users to “lose their mind” and drives them to a “violent delirium” during which they end up “indulging in riotous behaviour”. The blame falls primarily on the occupation soldiery whose abuse of the local people is conveniently explained away by their recent discovery of cannabis. It also targets the Egyptians whose acts of hostility against French presence is de-politicized in the process, being blamed on their drug use. The text further assimilates hashish consumption to an epidemic and purports to be an answer to its social effects.

   This is not however the underlying reason for this promulgation. Hardly arrived in Egypt, Bonaparte sought to coalesce the local elites towards buttressing his domination over the country. This rapprochement approach entailed the promotion of intermarriage and cultural mimicry: the General encouraged his officers to take the daughters of local worthies for brides and to adopt local mores. For himself he had no qualms in dressing “the oriental way” for multiple public appearances or in styling himself a “worthy child of the prophet or “favoured by Allah”. Having married an Egyptian woman and converted to Islam, Jacques de Menou – Also known as Abdallah-Jacques Menou – merely upheld this policy once propelled at the head of the expedition. By targeting hashish consumption, the commander was doing little more than endorsing a long-held wish of the Sunni elites: forbid a practice they deemed a sin and a threat to their position, as substance use favoured the gathering – indeed the drunken communion – of the popular fringes most hostile to the social order in force.

   If, in this business, the public health and safety interests of the short-lived colonial power overlapped with the moral and political interests of the indigenous elites, the measure would not in the end be followed with effects: a few months later, the French surrendered to the British and left Egypt for good, forgetting for a few decades, cannabis and its psychotropic proprieties.

Read more in the dictionary : Anti-drug Campaigns - Psychedelic - LSD

Read the paper in French : Cannabis (prohibition)