Medicine: Hashaholics

Aside from opium and its derivatives (heroin and morphine), no drug has had a worse press than hashish. The resinous extract from the flower heads of female Indian hemp plants (Cannabis saliva) is five to ten times as potent as bulky, unrefined marijuana. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land brought back the tale that the chief of a Moslem sect used hashish to give fanatical courage to his hirelings before they set out on murder missions. Thus, from a corruption of hashshashin, they added the word assassin to the language. What has since been...