The world of cannabis is changing. The 21st century is witnessing decriminalisation of recreational use and increasing pressure for wider medical application. There are global cultural and social implications – but not all of them well explored. In 'Herb', the writer Colin Grant sets out to remedy this, mixing autobiography, history and research. He carries no agenda, ‘no lawyer’s brief for marijuana’. Rather, in a landscape in which almost all discussion is polarised, he seeks to explore a range of more nuanced aspects of its use and abuse.

In this first essay, Colin explores how his own attitude towards the drug has evolved over the years and the ambivalence he feels about it now. His father felt he had the perfect justification for dealing cannabis to his fellow West Indians in Luton in the late 1960s; he was doing it to further his ten-year-old son’s education. Unsurprisingly, the law didn’t quite see it that way...

Producer: Kirsty Pope

A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3