Smoke signals : a social history of marijuana : medical, recreational, and scientific / Martin A. Lee.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Herblore. Black and blue ; New world hemp ; Elixirs and tinctures ; High on hash ; Sex, drugs, and the occult -- Prohibition. The Mexican connection ; The mighty Mezz ; Voodoo pharmacology ; A truth drug ; Cold war cannabis ; Writing the reality script -- Reefer rebellion. Seeds of change ; The riddle of THC ; Grass and acid ; A tipping point ; Legalize it! ; Flower power ; High spies -- The big chill. This means war ; Dr. Mikuriya's medicine ; The euphoria of secrecy ; Seeing is believing ; Rasta vibration ; In your face -- Just say never. Reefer sadness ; The laughing cure ; Home grown ; Going Dutch ; Drug-war doublespeak ; The hemperor -- From blunts to ballots. Bush v. weed ; The brain and marijuana ; Hip-hop hemp ; To live and die in San Francisco ; The pot club ; Crossing the Rubicon -- Fire in the belly. Counterattack ; Unchartered waters ; Southern exposure ; Falling dominos ; The stake-out ; Veterans for drug-war peace -- Ground Zero. Narcs gone wild! ; Show trials ; Physicians in the crosshairs ; The Supreme Court punts ; The long arm of the DEA ; Ten years after -- Mellow mayhem. Senior stoners ; An industry emerges ; Healing without the high ; Booze or bud? ; The green rush ; Suffer the children.

Traces the social history of marijuana from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in an ongoing culture war. Describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a multibillion-dollar industry.