Travelling Substances and Their Human Carriers: Hashish-Trafficking in Mandatory Palestine

It is a known fact that the sale and consumption of drugs (opium and to a lesser extent cannabis) was widespread in the Ottoman Empire and did not elicit repressive measures such as those adopted against wine, coffee and tobacco. Not unlike European rulers and statesmen of their time, Ottoman sultans indulged in the pleasure of opium, which was also consumed by various Sufi orders in their rituals and ceremonies. These recreational and devotional practices were by no means confined to the upper echelons of the Ottoman state, however. Indeed, European and Ottoman travelers from the fifteenth century onward regularly reported on the proclivity of ordinary ‘Turks’ to consume humongous quantities of opium, similar to the situation that prevailed in Europe from the fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth century....