One of the more suggestive parallels between 19th century France and the United States today is the fact that the French interest in cannabis at that time was aroused by the returning French soldiers and scientists of Napoleon's army in Egypt, a source of the drug. A similar interest occurred in the United States after the Korean conflict, and has intensified since Vietnam.

During the 19th century, European interest in the drug was aided by two scientific reports, the first by W. B. O'Shaughnessy in 1839, and the second report by Queen Victoria's physician, Russell Reynolds. Both men recommended its medical use for a variety of ailments and as a mild euphoriant. Cannabis received highly laudatory testimonials from the medical profession of that day and was readily available without prescription (Snyder, 1970: 121).

Interest in cannabis was further kindled by popular writers who used and spoke of hashish enthusiastically, including Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Pierre Gautier. Gautier and Baudelaire, in fact, were members of the Club des Hachischins, in which a number of writers and intellectuals gathered and experimented with hashish.

Although the public delighted to read of the French writers' drug experiences, the public did not care to engage in the same kind of activity; to them the experiences were frightening and repugnant. "As a result, the smoking of hashish remained the sub-rosa province of a few European artists until the recent trans-Atlantic phenomenon of the American drug culture" (Geller and Boas, 1969: 8).