Chairman's introduction.

HASHISH is a fascinating subject. It is not so very long since we still thought that there might be an important future for it in medicine, but opinions about it have varied between extremes. Some have regarded it as a panacea, while others think it is purely a poison; but of course this is also true of attitudes to alcohol! Comparatively recently, we have had editorials in the Lancet (1963) telling us that there is no very good reason why states should endeavour to suppress cannabis. One can see an element of truth in this, although it is so very much against the views of people like the late Dr. P. 0. Wolff (1949), who studied cannabis in great detail and who put it nearly in the cocaine class as a medicine. It is just about thirty years since I obtained some synthetic cannabinols which Professor (now Lord) Todd and Professor Bergel had made and put them through a battery of tests in my laboratory. At that time‘.we had very great hopes that these cannabinols might have some psychiatric applications. This was, of course, before the phenothiazines and Rauwolfia alkaloids had become fashionable. It may be that we will yet go back to some synthetic relation of the cannabinols which we tested then.