Cannabis as a ‘High’ Inspiration in Literature
Were there great writers in history who were inspired by cannabis? Are there literary works fueled by the stunning effect of the green buds? Without a doubt, cannabis and literature go a long way back. The use of cannabis to stimulate the mind already existed in ancient Greece. And there are hashish eaters in the stories of 1001 Nights. No matter which epoch of literature you look at, you may find pages that just might smell or scream cannabis.
Hash Eating in French Literary Tradition
The Hashish Club or ‘Des Hashischins’ was founded in Paris in 1844. Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and Alexandre Dumas were some of the most prominent members of this club. They met once a month to eat dawamesc, an oriental pastry with cannabis, under the supervision of a doctor.
Baudelaire soon spoke of ‘artificial paradises.’ Here he escaped from the ‘spleen,’ a term he used to describe melancholy and the profound misery of life. The ‘artificial paradises’ were where the unknown beauty of the world laid. But you soon realize that everything you find in this paradise, magnificent and malicious, is already inside you. Perhaps this is why cannabis caused fascination on the one hand and rejection on the other.
Cannabis Revival with the Beat Generation
It was not until the Beat generation in the middle 20th-century that people began to consume cannabis more intensively again. Or consumption became more of a hot topic again so to say. Some of the most important Beat generation writers, such as Allan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac or William Burroughs, were all inspired by cannabis. For instance, Burroughs says that he owes many scenes in his book Naked Lunch to the effects of weed.
Poet and writer Ginsberg went into more depth by theorizing around cannabis a little bit. “Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optimal and aural aesthetic perceptions,” he wrote in his essay “The Great Marijuana Hoax,” originally published in Atlantic Monthly in 1966. In this essay, Ginsberg makes a critical distinction between the concept of using drugs for an easy escape and as an agent which can enable the true expansion of consciousness.
In addition, Ginsberg was convinced that the U.S. government was at least in some way involved in illicit drug trades internationally. Therefore, he also wrote other essays detailing his research and theories about CIA’s purported involvement in trafficking.
Great Novels and Cannabis
There are at least a few cult literary classics in which cannabis is more than just consumed. It’s in the backbone of the narrative. It’s the fuel. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from 1932 is a dystopian world set in the year 2540. It depicts a society that is divided into five castes - highest to the lowest - to maintain order. To avoid major emotional swings that can lead to negative moods, people in this world regularly take ‘soma,’ a drug that has a mood-enhancing and stimulating effect that is also used as an aphrodisiac. Cannabis can have similar effects, of which Huxley was of course aware. Soma is the substance that holds society together, that maintains the system.
TC Boyle's 1984 novel Green is Hope is about a hippie who tries to escape his bleak economic situation by setting up a cannabis plantation in Northern California. Of course, his hopes of making a lot of money with it go awry. The harvest is poor and he barely earns anything.
Last but not least, Alex Garland’s 1996 novel The Beach follows the story of a young globetrotter who makes his way to a ‘paradise island’ in Thailand. The same island also happens to be home of drug lords who oversee a secret cannabis plantation there. The book was adapted into a popular movie, starring Leonardo di Caprio and Tilda Swinton.
In between these fantastic books and worlds, cannabis has become more and more prevalent in society. Enter contemporary literature - it’s now completely normal for characters to smoke a little pot just like they sometimes sip alcohol or munch a chocolate bar. It happens, it’s normal. No one makes a big fuss about it anymore, and those ‘toke’ scenes just might make reading all the more enjoyable!
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Stephen Andrews
