12. Hashish as a Substitute for Wine
In the absence of alcohol, French soldiers in Egypt cast about for an alternative intoxicant. They came upon hashish, and soon developed an insatiable taste for it. Before long, French forces in Egypt were swept by an epidemic of hash addiction. The new habit quickly began to erode discipline and undermined the French military’s effectiveness to such an extent that Napoleon issued a total ban on hashish. He and French commanders reasoned that their troops were more effective back when they used to be alcoholics than they were now as junkies. So to help wean the French soldiers off of hash and return them to wine, Napoleon commissioned the local production of date wines and spirits.
It did not work: French troops drank the newly introduced date alcohol and discovered that it went great with hash, which they kept right on smoking. So instead of having to deal with soldiers who were frequently high, French commanders found themselves having to deal with soldiers who were now frequently high and drunk. Worse was to come after the Egyptian Campaign collapsed, and the surviving French troops were repatriated back home. They brought their hash and hash smoking habits back to France with them. Soon, hashish began to gain in popularity in Parisian salons and Bohemian circles, and from there, hash use spread to the rest of Europe.
