For hundreds of years, governments have been using commissions of inquiry to help them investigate pressing social problems and to formulate plans for organized social and governmental responses to these problems. One of the first government commissions on problems associated with drug use, appointed in 1893, was the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission—whose purpose was to investigate the extent to which the hemp plant was cultivated, the preparation of drugs from it, the trade in those drugs, the extent of their use, and the effects of their consumption on the social, physical, and moral conditions of the people. In addition, they were asked to investigate certain economic aspects of the use of hemp and also the potential political, social or religious results of the prohibition of hemp. After one year of investigation, the commission published a report summarizing its conclusion that the occasional use of...